I'll See You In Nirvana

A GIRL NAMED NIRVANA

A bright light filled my view and then everything went dark once more. My head was empty, no longer attached to my body as I landed on the cold, hard stone. Stone? The ground was soft with dirt and grass. How was I on stone?

Slowly, my eyes adjusted to the sight of the man kneeling before me. I was leaning against the cliff face behind me, having already given up on life. I looked around and saw that nothing else had changed. I was immediately convinced this was heaven.

"Wha- why are you kneeling?" I asked, strangely calm.

"It is only right to kneel before divinity," he said, "Shall I stop?"

"Yes," I said, apprehensively.

He stood and went to pick up his lantern. "Should we get going now?"

"Where?"

"Home." He raised his lantern to the left. "The road is this way."

"I'm not in heaven yet? What about my body?" I looked around for a corpse but didn't find one. "Did you bury me already?"

"My apologies, Goddess. I thought you were merely a slave, but I know differently now." He bowed.

"Wait, I'm not dead?"

"No, but we must get going before our enemies catch wind of your resurrection."

"Resurrection? I get the rest, but resurrection?"

"We should walk and talk. It will rain soon."

Without a moment's notice, I turned and took off at full speed. If I wasn't dead, I needed to get as far away as I could. I soon began hearing rapid footsteps nearby and saw the man close by with his lantern flickering wildly in the wind. The sight of him keeping pace with me so effortlessly made me panic, but I didn't have long to worry about it before going blind to the sound of a heavy thump.

I awoke to movement and felt the heat of someone's back. We were moving between the trees much faster than I could alone. After a moment, pain shot through my forehead and I winced. I must have run into a tree.

"I see you are awake." The man's voice made my head hurt more, but the pain soon began to fade.

"Are we going back?" I mumbled.

"Not to the mansion," he said, "We're going where you are needed. The last of your followers reside in a town called, Goldleaf, in Gullanda."

"Goldleaf?" I was in shock, barely believing my ears. "I'm from there... I- the orphanage."

"It looks like your memory has not returned yet." He sounded jovial despite the nonsense he spoke. "I will remind you of your origins and hopefully jog your memories."

We soon came upon a road and followed it away from the lights of the manor in the distance. On the way, he told me a story.

There was once a godless land of people who often adopted the deities of others and worshiped them as their own. Despite this practice, the people were often besieged by calamities and natural disasters. On one occasion, the last of their people were nearly wiped out by a tsunami that reached far inland. That was when a miracle occurred. A woman stepped forward, and bearing mighty flames, she pushed back the high wave and revealed a water serpent large enough to swallow a mountain. Once the serpent was revealed, the two began a fierce battle that lasted for seven days until their final clash ripped the sky in two and shook the earth. The battle resulted in the neutral demise of both parties. As the woman lay dying, so too, did her foe.

It was only with her final breath that the people learned the truth. The land they called home was not godless. The woman who emerged to save them was actually the goddess who presided over them. Unlike many other gods, she was mortal and could die of age and sickness. She considered herself unworthy to be a god and hid amongst her people while protecting them from the worst of the disasters that came their way. When she did die, she would reincarnate as a child born of her people soon after.