The air no longer whooshed past his ears, yet Jim still floated in the empty space, suspended by an unknown abeyance. The blood on his shirt felt chilled and caused the garment to stick to his skin uncomfortably.
Above him, a formation of fog drifted back and forth, following the floating man with similar patterns of suspension. Jim watched it, reveled in the distraction of the smoke. He felt like a child looking at clouds, pleased with himself for seeing the shapes of animals and landmarks in the ethereal vapor. This time, the shape of the fog formed a man, rubbing at his chin in study.
“You see me. You live?” Jim both heard and felt the vibrations of the voice, which seemed to emanate from nothingness. “Many see, but rarely do any live. You are wrong.” The man made of smoke tilted his head and drifted closer. “You see smoke because you do not understand.”
“Understand what?” Jim asked.
“That I am what remains.” The smoke moved around Jim like a spider studying a fly that had become trapped in its web. “You do not understand, because you are what we were, and you are wrong.”
Every word spoken by the swirling being sent rumblings through Jim’s chest, reawakening the pain in his wounded body. He tried to shift, to ease some of his discomfort, but only succeeded in escalating his aggravation.
“Floating does not suit you?”
The smoke moved its arm and made a quick motion. All at once, gravity returned to Jim. He plummeted a few inches and landed on invisible ground. Pain ruptured through his body, causing flashes of red to interrupt the familiar darkness and dropping him to his knees. Jim felt rivulets of cold blood drip down his body.
“He kneels?” The smoke said with obvious indignation. “How formal. How annoying. You kneel to worship, and you worship because you do not understand what I am. None do. None will. You only see me as your perception of a deity. Yet, here I am, in the same purgatory as….” The smoke reached his hand forward, nearly touching Jim’s trembling form. “Oh.” It said, embarrassed. “I apologize. You kneel due to pain, and pain is much preferred to worship.”
The man crouched before Jim and hovered his hands over the many wounds. Jim’s chest tingled and itched, and he wanted nothing more than to scratch at the incredible irritations. But when he moved his arm, the itching stopped, as did the pain.
Jim was in a state of amazement. He was used to the quick healing of injury that came with his kind, but what he had just experienced was instantaneous. One moment he was on the brink of death, the next he could move and breathe with no sign of the torment that had threatened to end his existence.
Jim looked at the smoke man’s face. “Thank you.” He said and stood.
“There is no need to suffer, not here.” The smoke said, drifting as he spoke. “Death uses pain as a motivation for life. But life has no purchase here, so pain is useless.”
"Where is here ?" Jim asked, gesturing towards the dark plane.
“Where?” The smoke chuckled. “Below, Hell, purgatory, eternity: there are too many names for a place as disappointing as the afterlife. What you should be asking is ‘How’. How are you here, living amongst the deceased? How did God mistake you as a man who belonged in a place such as this? How is it that you can leave when none else who reside here can? ‘Where’ is not nearly as important as ‘How’, and ‘How’ is a question that I have asked for millennia.”
“I can leave?” Jim asked, finding hope in the small rant that the smoke had uttered.
The smoke-man tilted his head, quizzically. “Of course, you can leave. You are wrong, you do not belong amongst the souls of former life. But you will return; I know your kind. Your leave will be temporary, but your stay will be eternal. Just as mine has been.”
Hope elated Jim, “Can you show me how to leave?”
“Of course, I can.” The smoke said, plainly. “But, in return, you must show me how you came here.”
The man drifted forward and hovered his hands over Jim’s temples.
“How do I…” Jim began to ask, but never finished his question.
Memories began to flood through Jim’s mind, overcoming his existence within the darkness. He saw the tower that he had fallen from, felt the bullets tear through his skin. He heard the twang of the elevator cable and felt the strain in his muscles as he hoisted himself in the air.
Then, he was with Colter, receiving contracts from his trusted companion for a price that compared to governors and Leaders. He felt Colter's grip on his shoulder. We’re gonna be rich, Jim! With you in the frontline and my negotiation skills, we’ll never want for anything!
Jim found himself suddenly in a forest; he was younger than he remembered. Winter was harsh and deadly. Wisps of frigid air snuck through the cabin’s walls and diminished the comfortable heat of the fire. A knock came from the door and Jim undid the latch, allowing more cold to enter his haven.
In an instant, Jim was outside. Winter was only starting, but his cloak was made for concealment, not heat. He shivered, grasping to the trunk of the pine as monsters stumbled below him.
Then, he was home. Walls reached high above him offering their protection with dutiful resilience. His family was here: his father, mother, and… and?
No. Only he was there, staring at the green that would never see again. There was too much blood; she looked so small. There was nothing he could do. He was alone. She was gone.
Jim screamed.
Tears blurred the smoky landscape before him. He was still screaming and, it seemed, that the world was screaming back. A vortex of smoke swirled around him, releasing a deafening roar of wind and wails.
The man made of smoke moved close to Jim. “You must be quiet! You must be still!”
Jim listened, hearing the urgency in the man’s voice, and calmed his terrified shout. As he quieted, the vortex mimicked his mood. It was slow to settle but became still and silent as Jim soothed his shaky breathing. Once the motion around him stopped, Jim saw the forms of dozens, if not hundreds, of smoke-made people standing around him. The sight was unsettling. Jim crouched low, his instincts telling him that danger was all around.
“They can feel your life.” The man said, “They know you are wrong, just as I do, and they wish to use you to return. But it’s not that simple, things rarely are. They have become carnal in their desire for life and they cannot control what you will see. But…perhaps I can.”
Jim stayed crouched, listening to the man while keeping his eyes planted on the crowd of fog.
“I can help you return.” The man of smoke said, as the mist around him shimmered and began to dissipate. “But you may lose yourself to my touch.” A form was becoming revealed beneath the concealing smoke. Jim squinted his eyes, trying to see the details of the man who had been speaking with him. “Only one has ever lived through my life. But madness is the first step towards magnificence.” The smoke vanished completely, and Jim shuddered at the man who had taken its place.
Arms covered in blisters and blackened flesh connected to a thin torso which moved with agonized breaths and showed its exposed ribcage. No clothing covered the man, though there was barely enough flesh on his body that would have required coverage. His face was made of charred skin, his lips burned away long ago to reveal his gaping mouth. Jim had heard stories of this man, who shrouded himself in shadows and harbingered those of life to the underworlds and beyond: Death.
"Do you fear me?" Death asked, stepping close to the crouching man. "Do you wish for me to hide the truth of my form?"
"Should I fear you?" Jim asked, calming the shudder that rippled through his chest.