by Dima Zales
The closer I get to my destination, the more bodies I encounter. Soon, I have no choice but to step on the dead, and so I do, dry-heaving every few feet.
“Gravity simulation malfunction,” Phoe’s sky voice says, and I realize I’ve grown so used to her other warnings that I’ve been ignoring them. Before I fully process the meaning of this new warning, I start falling.
A moment later, I understand that I’m not actually falling. I’m floating.
So are all the dead bodies around me.
They’re all floating in the air, forming a picture one would only expect to see in a surreal painting by an artist whose mind was ravaged by mercury poisoning.
I thrash my arms and legs for a few minutes, but it’s futile. The only thing I achieve is a slight warmth in my frozen limbs.
Still, something is drawing me to that building. I don’t know what it is. Maybe I’m hoping to find a neon sign that says ‘Goal,’ or maybe I’m hoping to meet the Council members and hear them say, “That was a nice set of moral dilemmas. You can now exit the Test.”
Maybe I want to see if they caused this, and if so, I want to strangle them, one by one, before I die with everyone else.
Through trial and error, I learn that pushing a dead person in one direction launches me the opposite way, so I insult the dead in a new way. Instead of taking their clothes, I use them to propel myself forward.
I fly through this insane morgue for what feels like a day. When I grab the next body, I recognize the person’s face.
It’s Fiona, the current Council leader and Keeper of Information.
By now, I’m too numb to feel anything. Yes, this woman was nice to me, and finding her dead body killed my remaining hope, but I can’t bring myself to care.
I’m too cold. Too tired.
Tears are frozen on my face.
I push Fiona away, letting the movement propel me toward the big conglomeration of bodies. Once there, I burrow into the center of the pack, hoping they’ll shield me from the cold.
Then I close my eyes and float.
My fear of heights is gone. I’m even enjoying this feeling of weightlessness.
I wonder what dying will feel like. Will it be like the time I fell into the ocean of Goo inside the IRES game? I guess that depends on how I’ll die. Suffocating seems like a horrible way to go, but I think my chances of freezing to death are higher. I read that you simply fall asleep when you freeze and never wake up, which doesn’t sound as scary.
I float for a while longer before I realize the pain from the cold is gone—one of the final stages of hypothermia.
It’s becoming harder to think. With each moment, I feel more and more like a disembodied mind floating in a realm of pure thought.
The only sensation I have is that of tiredness.
All I want to do is sleep.
Part of me knows I should fight the drowsiness. If I fall asleep, that’ll be the end. But I find it hard to care.
At least I’ll die in my sleep.
I stop fighting.
Letting go of my consciousness, I drift off.
* * *
I wake up gasping for air. A frantic wheeze later, I recall that I didn’t think I’d wake up—that, in fact, I hoped I wouldn’t.
This isn’t a reprieve, far from it. I’ve just exchanged a less horrible death for a worse one.
Just for a moment, I allow myself a fantasy, one in which everything that happened was nothing more than a terrifying dream. I imagine I’m waking up in my bed, hyperventilating because of that nightmare.
Having difficulty breathing because I’m stressed.
When I look around, however, I know that to be a lie.
I’m still a human icicle. I’m still floating in the middle of a cloud made up of Elderly corpses.
The cold lulled me to sleep but didn’t have time to kill me.
Cold sweat freezes on my skin, and my heart pounds audibly in my ears as I fight to pull air into my screaming lungs.
All the oxygen must be gone. As efficient as the Respirocytes are, once there’s no more air for them to carry, they’re useless.
My body instinctively fights for more air. My neck muscles spasm, and my diaphragm feels like it might tear.
Screaming for help doesn’t work, so I mentally shout for Phoe—probably for the last time. She doesn’t reply.
My spasmodic thrashing sends corpses floating in every direction.
I clutch at my bulging throat. My eyes feel like they’re about to pop out of my skull. Weakness starts to overtake me. My brain must’ve run out of oxygen. My pulse slows as scenes from my life play out in my mind.
My heart stops, and the redness that became my world changes into a tunnel of white light.
I die.
8
I’m floating on the brink of consciousness like a bodiless ghost.
Given that I died, really died, any form of consciousness, even this ephemeral kind, is a good development, though I don’t understand how it came about.
I ponder my existence. For how long, I don’t know, because I have no sense of time.
Am I a ghost? A spirit? A soul?
Were the ancients right when they invented those fanciful concepts?
My memories are fuzzy. I don’t remember who I am, why I’m here, or where “here” is. Is amnesia part of the afterlife? A way to make sure I don’t miss what I left behind? The only concrete and unshakable memory I have is the knowledge that I’m dead. I also have this conviction that I have some important choices to make.
Ah, yes. Though everything else is still hazy, the choices I have are like islands of clarity. The first choice is what my wings should look like.
Before I question this—as one would an illogical dream—a vision of rows of different wings assaults me, which is odd for many reasons, but mainly because I don’t have any eyes. But even without sight, I see all these wings in all their variety and beauty.
Ancient legends come to mind again. Is this heaven? Am I about to turn into a winged angel with a halo above my head? Is that why I need wings?
As though spurred on by this theory, countless stereotypical angel wings spread out in front of my mind, each a variation on the dove-feathered appendages and in varying shades of white.
This is one choice among millions.
Other options appear to my inner eye: dragon wings, bumblebee wings, bat wings, rows upon rows of insect, bird, reptile, and gliding mammalian wings. There’s even a row of wing-like fins similar to a stingray’s. Without knowing how, I know that if I ‘zoom in’ on a specific type of wing, countless variations of that theme will be presented to me as the next step in the selection process, similar to the way the angel-themed wings appeared.
Some choices aren’t rooted in reality. For example, there’s a myriad of abstract shapes, which I find fascinating. In response to my interest, choices upon choices of these surreal wings present themselves to me.
I don’t know how long I take to decide, but in the end, I choose a set of wings that look like they’re woven out of wisps of fire arranged in strange mathematical patterns. They look like someone froze one of those fractal music visualizations mid-design.
My fuzzy mind finds something vaguely humorous in that; my new wings are the exact opposite of the heavenly design I started off with. They look like an abstractionist’s vision of a fire demon’s wings.
Actually, these wings also remind me of that fiery bird from ancient legends, a creature called the phoenix. Thinking of that stirs some emotions in me that I can’t quite place so I just float mindlessly until I realize I have more choices to make.
The next one is much easier: I have to decide what my face will look like.
I’m presented with every version of a human face: some younger, some older, some cute, and some handsome. Some are more masculine, while others are gently feminine. Every face type can also have a variety of features, such as eyes, which can come in every color, shape, and size imaginable.
When I lay my metaphysical eyes on this group, I choose one face almost instantly. My choice is guided by aching familiarity. Something about its handsome features, blue eyes, blond hair, and the expression of curiosity in his gaze touches something forgotten inside me.
I choose a body just as quickly, despite the fact that the choices here are just as varied.
A sense of completion spreads through my sluggish mind. There are more things I can choose, but they’re optional and can be adjusted later. Still, almost on autopilot, I decide that yes, I want to wear clothes, specifically pants, and that yes, I’d love to have weapons too. Fiery swords would go nicely with my wings, so I choose two blades in the katana style. Other features are chosen for me at random, such as the sound of my voice and the glow of my skin. I gladly accept those options.
The whole process reminds me of the start of a video game, where the player has to create his character before he can begin his virtual journey.
“You don’t know how close to the truth you are,” a familiar female voice says in my mind. “I wish you hadn’t made yourself—”
I don’t get a chance to learn who spoke in my mind just then, or how or why she spoke because the selection process is now officially over and I feel myself streaming somewhere else, regaining memories and becoming whole as I go.
* * *
I come to my senses with a violent shiver. I remember falling asleep for the last time because I was freezing to death. Somehow that’s not what happened, since I’m awake.
Instead of floating in the subzero temperatures of Oasis, surrounded by a pile of frozen corpses, I’m standing in a warm, open space, surrounded by beautiful winged people who are speaking to one another in melodious, otherworldly voices.
Something nags at my awareness. Between freezing to death and this place, I had a dreamlike experience. In it, I made myself look like these figures—wings and all.
I recall my theories that this is some kind of life after death, and those ideas don’t seem as foolish as they did in my dream state. But these people aren’t angels. I’ve seen similar creatures before: the two Envoys—the one who spoke to Jeremiah back when the old man was still alive, and Jeremiah after he died and became the new Envoy.
Would rooms like this exist in the afterlife? I guess it’s possible. The space does remind me of a cathedral, which has a religious connotation, though it’s even more reminiscent of an ancient museum. The ceilings are at least a hundred feet high, and the distance from wall to wall is probably double that. Giant mirrors cover every surface, giving the room a wide-open feel and reflecting the winged people walking and flying around the space.
Ignoring the beings around me, I walk toward the nearest mirror. This is when, without much surprise, I realize that my dream-like wing selection was real.
As in, the wings are real.
As in, the wings are attached to my back.
Aside from the wings, my face looks subtly different from how I remember it. It’s as though someone cut it out of marble and polished out any imperfections and asymmetries. My reflection looks slightly older and taller, and my naked upper body is noticeably buffer. To top it all off, I’m somewhat luminescent—not as shiny as some of the others in the room, but noticeably so. I vaguely recall this being part of the choices in my dreamlike state.
“The fact that you chose your own face is a problem,” Phoe says as a voice in my head. “I tried to speak to you during the selection phase, but by the time I got through, it was too late. Nice wing choice, by the way.”
I now recall that she did speak up toward the end of the selection, only back then I didn’t know who she was. Then I recall the most important part: how she didn’t speak during those fateful hours when everyone around me was dying. Horrific memories flood my brain, and I shout out loud, “Phoe! Where the hell have you been? Where the fuck am I? What the fuck—”
“I know dying can be disorienting,” a melodic female voice says from behind me—a voice that doesn’t sound anything like Phoe. “But do you have to use that kind of language in front of your peers? I didn’t expect that vile f-word to ever be uttered in Haven.”
Everything falls into place at the mention of Haven, but I don’t have time to dwell on it because I come face to face with a winged, nearly naked female of such beauty that I stare at her curves in open-mouthed awe.
“Stop staring at Fiona like that,” Phoe says with more than a hint of jealousy. “Don’t give her a chance to realize that you’re not one of the—”
“Who are you?” the woman—Fiona—asks. “You’re not part of the Council.”
My mouth snaps shut. This is Fiona, the last Keeper of Information. She’s also the old woman whose corpse I saw before I died.
“Maybe he’s a Forebear,” a male voice cuts in. “Maybe they finally decided to explain what we’re doing here. What happened in Oasis? Why did we all die? Why—”
“Calm down, Vincent,” Fiona says, her beatific voice sounding exactly like the soothing notes of a harp. “Let the man speak.”
“I, err…” My voice also sounds different, reminding me of a trumpet. “I don’t—”
“You’re the last one to ascend. There are thirteen of us now. You have to be the last Council member, but I don’t recognize your face,” Vincent says, his large eyes narrowing. “Start with how you got here and your name.”
“Don’t tell them your real name,” Phoe commands in my mind. “It’s bad enough that you decided to look like your own handsome—and recognizable —self.”
“What do I say then?” I ask Phoe mentally, wishing we had time for me to ask her about a million other questions instead.
“Say you’re—”
Phoe doesn’t finish her thought because the large cathedral doors open, and bright light floods into the huge room.
“Finally,” Vincent says and heads for the door.
Everyone joins Vincent by the entrance, blocking some of the light pouring in from outside.
“Fly up,” Phoe thinks at me. “Now.”
“How do I fly?” I respond.
“Using your wings might be a good way,” Phoe says. “I doubt thinking happy thoughts will work, though you’re welcome to try, as long as you also flap your wing muscles.”
“But how—”
“Just do it. Pretend you know how,” Phoe says. “They’re already inside.”
Using my wings for the first time is one of the oddest sensations I’ve ever experienced. It’s as if I grew an extra pair of arms and had to learn how to use them separately from my original arms. At least with spare arms I’d have a point of reference, but my wings are completely foreign. Yet without any effort and as if I’ve always known how, I spread my fiery wings and leap upward.
With a powerful downward stroke, I fly toward the ceiling, leaving embers and heat haze behind me.
“Your wings don’t just look like they’re made of fire,” Phoe explains. “They actually interact with our environment the same way—”
I fly higher, fear making me miss the rest of her explanation. It seems my new wings did little to quell my problem with heights.
“Yeah, your fear of heights is now even less rational,” Phoe says, attempting—and failing—to soothe me. “Winged creatures shouldn’t be—”
A big, muscular man with giant, dragon-like wings enters the cathedral with an entourage of similarly beefy specimens.
“Dear new arrivals,” he says, his voice booming like a war drum. “I’m Brandon.”
He pauses with the air of someone who’s used to having his name recognized and respected. But I’ve never heard of him, and it doesn’t seem like any of the others have either.
Unperturbed, he goes on. “It saddens me to inform you that you will not be joining the society of Haven. Our enemy may have contaminated you, and letting you leave this quarantine cathedral is a risk we are not willing to take. I truly am sorry. You will be d
ispatched back to Limbo. I’m confident we will meet again, under more congenial circumstances.”
His eyes are mournful as he looks around the cathedral. With poorly concealed regret, he gestures with both hands as though he’s pantomiming holding a baseball bat.
A large two-handed medieval sword appears in Brandon’s hands. The blade has a bluish tint, and its sharp edge glints in the bright light of the chandeliers. Without another word, he swings the sword, severing the heads of the two winged Council members nearest him.
Everything slows.
My wings feel weak, and I wonder if I’m about to plummet to the floor.
The severed heads begin falling.
9
The heads never touch the intricate mosaic on the floor, and the headless bodies never fall down.
Instead, the heads and bodies change shape. That is, they momentarily look like they were ripped apart into square shapes reminiscent of the pixelated images I’ve seen in the ancient archives. It’s as though the bodies turned into tiny cubist paintings. Then, each of the small three-dimensional subcomponents suddenly shines and shrinks in the air until nothing remains. There’s an empty spot where two winged beings stood a moment ago. No heads or bodies are left.
“Are they dead?” I think, half to myself and half at Phoe.
“They’re back in Limbo, stored as mind backups in the DMZ with the rest of Oasis,” Phoe replies. “But those are semantics we’ll worry about when we’re out of here. For now, I need you to arm yourself. You have to make your swords appear. You remember choosing swords, right? Will them to appear.”
I register her words, but not their meaning because at that moment, Fiona and Vincent scream. Gliding near the ceiling, I look down and see them running away from the cathedral’s entrance.
The rest of the survivors cry out even louder and scatter like cockroaches.
Brandon doesn’t chase after them. With a dignified posture, he walks farther inside, a few winged warrior types behind him.
“The katanas, Theo,” Phoe screams in my mind. “You’ll need them. Spread your arms as though you’re about to grab two swords and wish you had them. Quick!”