Fall of a Hero: Hearts Without Foundation (a Fantasy Adventure)

Pixies

Maledicta had told me that once you're dead, if you've been good you'll wake up inside a cloud in the sky. Well, it must be true. I was dead and laying on a nice, white, fluffy cloud looking up at the blue, blue sky with a small yellow orb of a sun staring back at me. I didn't care how I died; I was just happy to be up in such a cozy and warm relaxed state as opposed to all this abrupt chaos I had to go through. Thank goodness it was over.

I took my hand and squeezed the side of the cloud, emitting a light puff. I sighed and made a cloud angel when it occurred to me. Maledicta had to be here. He was dead, and I knew he was a good person. I gazed around at the gorgeous skyscrape and on top of all the other clouds, but Maledicta was nowhere to be found.

I plunged my head below my own cloud and looked down to the bad place where the supposed bad people went. I saw underneath me a never ending purple desert and a graveyard that held in a bunch of people with iron wrought picket bars. Searching past the desperate hands worming through the bars, I saw a crowd of many faces, none of whom I recognized.

Had he fallen into the cracks and now walked Alicubi as a lost soul? Did what was left of him form into the entity of Serpo? Made sense. Serpo's ghastly nature of vanishing and almost identical appearance definitely coordinated with such a theory.

I pulled myself up and laid back down on the comfortable cloud. If I was dead, I shouldn't be allowed to feel the grief of loss. Why was I allowed to be feeling so sad?

Then I noticed something. I wasn't so comfortable anymore. The yellow orb sun started to get brighter and brighter into almost a sparkling white. It was getting really hot.

Closer and closer, the light drew near. It was so blinding that I was afraid for my eyes would get seared. I blinked protectively, but I really wanted to know what it was.

Finally, I drew up the strength to open my own eyes against the light. I couldn't see anything at first, but I heard a strangley accented woman's voice casually babbling.

"Yes well, I had just been a fiddlin' here with the warshin' of the other chil'ren, and they cames in with the dear and says to me, 'Mundus wants him tidied up and ready to serve in sanctuary of Uban as soon as after he can have a day off before so.'

"I says back, 'What happened to the poor thing?' 'cause he had come in as an awful mess, and so they says, 'he be a serf, gone and fainted in a mud puddle.' Well, I has never heard such a thing, so I justifies to myself, 'the tiny man musta been might-y tired.' Just so he can keep his manlihood, you know?"

The light dimmed, and I could see a glimmering ball in my face. I fell of of my bed, kicking off the sheets, and thumped onto the floor. The bedroom was huge with a few other beds. There were no windows, though, and it was rather dark, lit up with various candles and diamond chandeliers. The entirety of it all was without comparison as it was the most magically place I've ever been, practically lathered with Mundus's immense riches.

The sparkling ball drifted down to the carpet beside me. I tried scooping it with my hands, when I noticed the stout, soft lady, warmheartedly smiling away at me. She had a bobbed cut of black hair and dull brown eyes. She skittered next to me and lent me a hand.

"Hello. Fet'ven Vas be it? Your parents has advertised it so...such sick people, I think..." She shook my hand.

"Oh yea, um," I began as I sat up on the bed, "That's me, I guess..." I had new clothes on.

"Good," she laughed, folding the sheet I had kicked to the floor, "Then we has the right man, no?" I didn't say anything. I was sorta busy cupping the sparkle ball in my hands, poking my finger in the middle of it.