Chapter 22: Interlude: Afterlife, Pt. 4

  One morning during their second week in Afterlife, Erik woke up feeling terrible. His chest was hurting intensely along with his head and practically every muscle in his body felt like it was on fire. The pain varied from place to place, even the type of pain was different. His head was refusing to interpret any visual signals and had locked his eyelids shut. It also felt like his brain was vibrating, which did not feel good at all.

  As his brain knocked around, repeatedly hitting its own protective skull, it felt like he suffered a barrage of minor concussions. His muscles refused to do anything apart from aching, possibly because his brain was having a fiesta all by its lonesome. The aching could only be described as a slithering ache, like the muscles had been replaced by snakes that were also poisonous to the touch.

  The worst of all was the pain in his chest. It was a searing pain much worse, he reckoned, than having his chest on fire and melted away. He didn’t remember hurting so much even when he was burned alive. Erik couldn’t help but let out groaning screams now and then and his body had severed all contact with his brain.

  Gentle knocks sounded from on his door. No words came from his dry throat. The only parts of his body that moved were moving entirely of their own. It knocked again, just as gently. Erik wasn’t sure how long it had been since the initial knock, but it felt like hours, if not days. He screamed.

  Jessie opened the door and rushed in, letting the door slam into the wall with a bang. She rushed to him where he lay in his bedroom, covered in sweat and, in all likelihood, every other bodily fluid possible. He wasn’t sure, but it seemed just like his luck that a pretty girl would come to take care of him and there he was covered in his own bodily fluids, scaring her off. She didn’t leave, though.

  At first she looked panicked. She buzzed around, finding towels, both wet and dry, warm and cold. She then rushed around some more, finding no more than three separate glasses of water, as if the type of glass would mean anything. A fourth glass with an amber liquid was appreciated, though Erik figured that glass in particular was one hundred per cent panic-induced.

  Erik saw her next to him, holding a wet, cold towel to his head before she vanished, like smoke. The next second, if that, she reappeared from the door to his bedroom. He didn’t know if he was hallucinating or not, but something wasn’t making sense.

  “I talked to Nana, and she has purposefully and severely downplayed what getting our Crests feel like. You’ll feel like this for the rest of the day, and tomorrow, you should wake up with just a soaring high fever, muscle-aches, headache and mild-to-aggressive tendencies toward suicide,” Jessie said.

  Inside, Erik felt a little better. Jessie joking around even now helped. Inside meaning his mind, not inside his body. That other place felt terrible.

  She did what she could for him, but eventually left him to be. She realised that he wouldn’t want her to hover around him all day. That would make him feel bad. And also, he might have then had to do that for her in return, whenever she started her ‘awakening’. He didn’t want that.

  An unknown amount of time later, Erik managed to crawl into the shower before passing out. Somehow, he had managed to turn the water on first, as he woke some time later soaking wet, the skin on his hands rubbery and wrinkly.

  A few minutes later, he had also somehow managed the soapy bit of a shower and rolled around on the floor on a pile of dry, clean towels, and bathrobes which were somehow weirdly comforting. Finding a dry bathrobe among the mess of the bathroom, he somehow put it on and went out of his bathroom. It was nice that there was always enough stuff for what he needed.

  As he opened his apartment door to knock at Jessie’s, her door opened as well almost at the same time. The scantily clad, somewhat shorter woman exiting was not Jessie. Thank the gods it wasn’t Nana, either. The curvaceous, ashen-blonde elf paused and stared at Erik for just a moment. She then smiled a sinful, almost mischievous little smile before closing the door behind her and walking deeper into the hallway, presumably to her own apartment.

  Her lithe movements were a sight to behold, especially given her state of dress. For a second, one blessed second, Erik didn’t feel any pain whatsoever. That second ended much sooner than every other second had the last day or so.

  Approaching Jessie’s door again, it once more opened by itself as another woman showing a lot of skin appeared. The only thing that would surprise Erik at that point was another elven lady. It was Jessie.

  “Oh, fuck!” She covered her bikini-clad body by closing her bathrobe and tying it up. “Hey,” she tried, holding the vowel and acting like nothing had happened. She looked down the hallway for a second, spotting the elf and looked back at Erik with a wry smile. “So, I did a thing…”

  “So I’m stuck in my room having a magic awakening which feels like dying three times over, and you go to the beach to pick up chicks?” Erik said, feigning hurt with an attempt at a smile as he sat down on Jessie’s soft sofa with a groan caused by his aching muscles.

  “It just sort of happened,” Jessie started. “I was nervous about going through what you were going through, so I went to the pool to calm down and relax. The elf was there, so we greeted each other wordlessly. I had my sunglasses, so of course I kept checking her out and noticed she did the same.”

  Erik was pressing two glasses filled with ice cubes and water to each side of his head.

  “But how did-” he started, then stopped to focus on moving one of his glasses to a hotter area. “How does that work? You can’t talk, right?”

  “The first day it was kind of awkward. The second day, oof! That elf needs a leash. Not even an hour after I got to the beach, we were back in my room. No talking needed, just hot, mind-melting, crazy sex-”

  “Thanks, I got it,” Erik interrupted, trying not to visualise it. Jessie giggled in response. “So I’ve been out for two days?

  “Three, actually. Enough for a lot of encores, if you know what I mean,” Jessie said with a sly wink.

  Had he been out for so long? Everything was just a haze. All he could remember was pain and fire.

  “I checked up on you, you know! Several times a day, but you were out,” Jessie said, almost apologetically.

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  “Yeah, I didn’t know it had been that long. Don’t worry, I’m not mad. And thanks,” Erik said, flashing her a grin.

  Two days later, Erik wasn’t in as much pain anymore. He had noticed red bruises on his chest, and it itched like mosquito bites. He guessed that was his Crest forming, reaching his outer skin layer.

  Nana had said the Crest would be almost like a tattoo, which Erik wasn’t all that happy about. He didn’t have any tattoos, nor did he want one. He didn’t mind them on other people, though, and he understood why people got tattoos, but he wasn’t the type for it.

  Jessie split her time between Erik, learning at Nana’s shop and the elf. Erik didn’t mind the highly sexual relationship between the women as it allowed him time to rest and relax. He had even visited the winter cabin just to lay in the snow to cool his still feverish body.

  What he did mind about it was the two young and beautiful women indulging right next door. Worse still, their flirtatious and poorly hidden, playful hints uttered in front of him. He was just a man in his twenties, after all. There were only so many things his mind could distract itself with before thinking about it.

  Karma would always find a way to balance things out, though. One day soon after, Jessie didn’t answer when Erik knocked on her door. He went around their usual hangouts to look for her. She was nowhere to be found. He returned to her door, attempting a knock again, but still didn’t get an answer.

  Worried her Crest had started developing, Erik opened the door. His own awakening had shut his body down, made him unable to even scream. He had mixed feelings about the scene in front of him.

  Both naked women in front of him were breathing heavily and the amount of limbs writhing around was hard to keep track of. It was unclear whose body was on top of the other, but what was happening was plain as day; both of them had started developing their Crests.

  With a stressed sigh Erik got to work, getting wet towels, cold water, and blankets to cover the girls up. Both girls recognised his presence, though they didn’t seem very capable of acknowledging that fact. Maybe they tried not to, as when Jessie let out an audible groan, the elf likewise tensed up and seemed to be in more pain than earlier.

  Of course they were trying to keep silent, they couldn’t speak to each other unless they wanted an interdimensional headache.

  When it was the elf’s turn to let some sound out, Jessie almost rolled up into the foetal position in response, her body tightening. Erik felt a sense of relief to only suffer a mild headache.

  “Okay girls, I’m going to have to split you up,” Erik said and Jessie’s eyes locked onto his with a fierce expression.

  Erik understood why she reacted that way but when she looked at the elf beside her having no adverse reaction to his loud words, she relaxed again, at least as much as she could under the circumstance.

  “You’re both hurting each other. The couch pulls out for some reason, so I’ll put one of you there,” he said in response, leaving the bedroom to prepare the sofa.

  When everything was ready, he placed an arm under the elf’s thighs and the other under her back, lifting her up and carrying her to the couch. She groaned something and the tiny amount of pain in his head somehow offered meaning to the words. He didn’t understand the words at all, but the meaning behind them was somehow translated; ‘thank you’.

  Erik did what he could to care for the girls the following days, but like he had done, they were sleeping the days away. They were seldom conscious simultaneously, and they both asked about the other when they were present enough to speak.

  Erik learned that his newfound power to know the meaning behind the elf’s words worked both ways, so she knew the meaning behind his words as well, even though her Crest hadn’t developed enough to do the same.

  He also realised that the girls’ relationship wasn’t purely sexual after all, as both cared a lot about the other. He was thrilled for Jessie’s sake, though he didn’t know how it had come to be without conversation.

  The elf’s name, or rather, the meaning behind the name, was Floral Pattern of Plentiful Colours. It was a mouthful to say, so he tried to avoid it whenever they talked, but he said it a few times and she confirmed that was her name.

  However the translation worked, it was possible to communicate with her from now on. When they were feeling better, Jessie moved to the couch as well. They couldn’t understand each other yet, but the unrelenting pain whenever they heard each other speak was gone, for the most part. It allowed them to laugh more openly and without restraint.

  Erik couldn’t stand to be around them. New couples or intense flings were always obnoxious for other people.

  Jessie hadn’t deserted Erik, though. The three of them hung out a lot over the next few months and Nana had been right; they could learn a lot from each other. Her name was Nwhirenahosuo, which was much more of a mouthful to say than Flower Pattern of Plentiful Colours, but ‘Hosuo’ was her common name, and she didn’t mind being called just Hosu.

  After Erik and the two women had all developed their Crests more, communication got easier between them. It wasn’t just the literal meaning of their words that got through, but they became clear to understand, and the pain went away.

  All Crests were different in one way or another and the Crest itself would often take the form of a shape or a symbol signifying the Remnant’s core power. The remaining month or so in Afterlife would mainly build this power into something more or less unique to the person, though also based on their type. Their type was another way of referring to their specific bloodlines.

  A Werewolf Remnant would be a lot less likely to have a core power to fling fireballs than a Witch was, though it wasn’t impossible. A Werewolf would be more likely to be able to inflict disease or enhance themselves or others, for example.

  The shapes further away from the core of the Crest were additional powers, which wouldn’t grow on their own but had to be absorbed from crystals or gems. They wouldn’t be able to get any of these in Afterlife, the reason of which still unclear to them.

  Hosu was just as ignorant about these things as Erik was, as her own world was also a magic void, just like Earth. Her apologetic bow on her first day in Afterlife was because Nana had told her to speak less loudly, it turned out.

  Erik and Jessie both found that odd, but they had expected elves to be a magical species, not just another species similar to humans. All the games, books, and films had lied to them.

  What they had been right about was their relationship towards nature. Hosu lived in a treehouse. The tree itself was her house. The house hadn’t been built on or in the tree, but it had been grown. Actually, her entire planet was supposedly one tree. On this tree, forests of more trees could grow.

  Her people abhorred the idea of damaging nature for one’s own benefit, but the uncomfortable conversation about how houses were built on Earth went fine, as she understood that they were from a whole other planet and that cultures varied. They did even among the elves, after all. She didn’t understand all their words, but she got the gist of it, at least. In the end it didn’t seem like they were that different, all things considered.

  They had wars among their different nations just like humans did and some nations were more theologically inclined than others. They had no magic, except in their stories, just like Earth. If there were any Remnants around, they were hiding, or at least not making it known they had magical powers.

  Erik supposed there had to be living Remnants back home. According to Nana, Remnants were blessed with long lives, especially if they kept ascending.

  As the months passed in blissful harmony—in some part because of the three Remnants’ inability to feel any sadness or malicious feelings—the time came for a bittersweet goodbye. It started with a tear in space in the middle of the common area in front of Nana’s shop, though Erik was the only one who could see it. Not long after, Jessie saw another rip in space, this one just as invisible to the others as Erik’s was.

  It was time to say goodbye. Nana said the portal would allow them to leave for about a week, after which it would evict their leeching selves with force. Erik and Jessie agreed to meet up back in the ‘real world’, though Hosu lived in a different plane altogether, meaning the two lovers could never see each other again. The elf had become a dear friend to Erik as well, so it was parting with her that was the most difficult.

  Getting Jessie’s address, Erik said his goodbyes and left soon after his portal appeared. This allowed the girls to have some time together to say their goodbyes to each other. After these months, Erik couldn’t stomach thinking about never seeing Hosu again, but that was all the more reason to let the pair have some time. At least he’d just need to get on a quick flight to see Jessie again. What could go wrong?