[[Book 2 (FINAL book) of "One Lifetime is Never Enough"]]
"I would have waited for you forever."
The lament of a faraway voice that she had missed - that she had been longing to answer to - echoed in her mind.
"But, you are no longer here."
The des...
With a sudden jolt, he opened his eyes. If he had a mortal's beating heart, the organ would be pumping blood with as much vigor as possible to ease his uneasiness and restore order to his fleshly, finite existence.
But he was an immortal. A beating heart was not a necessity.
And most of all, he was one of the true immortals -- a deity born of nature's forces and spirit contained in the universe, that finally contributed to his physical form.
He was a true immortal that had just experienced his first mortal incarnation's death.
He forced himself to swallow a mouthful of air and any non-existent saliva he urged himself to muster, vaguely remembering the burning excruciating pain his throat last experienced before his death.
The wine.
The poison that his mortal incarnation had chosen to bestow upon himself.
Only after the pain dissipated just a little, he thought something was amiss.
Forgetting the discomfort he was still feeling from his death, he looked around him.
The surroundings were more than familiar.
A calm and peaceful plane extended as far as the eyes could see; a faint melody of the most beautiful tune floated around him -- melody that no mortal would ever be able to hear; an existence of pure tranquility; and myriad of colorful floras that the word 'splendor' could not even begin to remotely describe and do justice.
Heaven. Albeit not in the sense mortals normally knew. However, this was undoubtedly heaven as he had always known. It was his birthplace, the place of the immortals and deities.
In front of him, barely more than ten feet away, he saw an expansive ocean.
Bright lights were swimming in the darkness of the water that was almost as black as the night. The water was always visible in every nook and cranny of heaven - even in front of the Heavenly Palace. It was to enable an immortal - normal or deities alike - to always be able to access it.
The endless water.
The place where the cycle of reincarnations began. As was his last one.
However, he knew that his soul should not have come back to heaven.
He walked towards the edge and sat, his mind still in a daze. The sky above reflected the starry water, or vice-versa -- he no longer knew. After all, the heavenly sky was normally always bright, cloudless, starless. Perhaps the night sky was there to welcome him back. After all, he was the master of it.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
The lights in the water twinkled and swayed along with the current. Some of them were brighter than the others - mortal souls that were close to immortality. Some were the purest of white - deities that were undergoing their mortal tribulations. Some were of different shades of grey, almost blending into the dark water that was lulling their existence - souls that had accumulated too much bad karma.
