Burning Ashes

Chapter 2: Bones and Rifles

Well, that was my story. I hope you enjoyed it. Unfortunately, there will never be a part 2 thanks to my shitty writers for killing off a cool character like me way too soon. What comes after death? Hmm, good question. If we assume there's heaven and hell, I think I'm more likely to end up in latter. But someone like me will be able to do something small like talk their way out of hell, right? I don't know why, but I liked the idea of Asher versus Hell. You'd cheer for the underdog in cases like this, wouldn't you?

Haha, when life comes to an end, everything seems so much more trivial. When I think about my life, all I see is a little brat shimmying from one bad decision to the next. Do I have regrets? The question is more whether I don't regret something. Like commenting on my end like it's the trailer for a new movie, what the hell is that?!

As soon as I finish my pointless thoughts, I feel my body burning. All I see around me is the swallowing blackness of the abyss and in the midst of it, my hands catching fire, their flames dancing in the darkness. Admittedly, even though I had a split second's hope of maybe going to heaven after all, this probably means the opposite. But maybe someone like me never deserved this kind of salvation...

Slowly, my eyes close and my consciousness goes.

For whatever reason, hell feels a lot softer than I thought it would. At some point in my fall, I woke up. Or wait, that's the wrong way to put it. I woke up after landing on something. Where I come from, hell was understood to be a burning, agonizing place of eternal damnation, but this doesn't feel so bad. I stretch my body out fully on the soft surface and a smile settles on my lips. It's not the kind of smile I use to fool people, but the kind you get when you're just happy. At least I think so. It's been a long time since I really smiled. But fuck it, first I'm going to take a deep breath.

Wait... Deep breath? That means I'm not dead at all! Little by little, my senses return to me. I hadn't noticed because I thought I'd kicked the bucket, but the environment around me is far too bright for me to be trapped in the dark hell. I gasp once and try to move my fingers first. It works. All right, that makes one thing clear. I'm not dead. But I notice another very annoying thing as my consciousness returns. I have that trilling beeping in my ears that you hear when you hit the ground from a high position. My eyes don't quite want to do what I want them to do as well. I can see that it's bright, but I can't open them fully. It takes a few seconds before I tear them open with effort and my ears pick up the sound of my surroundings.

But I quickly wish I couldn't hear. My body lies flat as a pancake on the floor and I can't move anything apart from my fingers and toes. This only made the creepy growling even creepier. I can't turn my head, so I have to rely on rolling my eyes and what I see is anything but pretty. But let's summarize my situation again: There's good news and bad news. The good news is that I'm somehow still alive. The bad news is that I probably won't be for much longer!

Because here I am, lying in the middle of an unfamiliar forest, with the sun shining right through the treetops and directly into my face. But the best part of the story is that I can't move and a bunch of hungry-looking dogs are standing around me! And by hungry, I mean hungry! The critters look like they're just bones with a layer of skin on top! Gah, come on, I don't want to die again! When you've just found your inner peace and suddenly you're alive, you don't want to die again, you know! Hopefully this is just a dream or a fairy tale and a prince on a white horse will come and scare the creatures away and save Princess Asher, with the little bit of leg hair! Joking aside, that looks bad!

The dogs circle me cautiously. I'm not sure, but I think there are six of them. They look at me with eyes that seem to be drowning in their skulls. The pupils, if you can even call them that, are just white dots in the middle of the eye sockets and their fur seems to be covered in ash. Not to mention the pungent odor they emit. Their snouts are studded with razor-sharp teeth that are so white that they stand out clearly from the rest of their bodies. But for some reason they seem to shy away from attacking me. Was it because I moved my fingers? Did they think I was dead and are surprised that I'm not? If that's the case, then I'll move as much as I can!