Warning: Angst and Death. And Spoilers ahoy! This is a fanfiction epilogue to when everyone dies Ending B of Blindside. I’m hesitant to make it canon for now because I’d prefer not to have any interpretation of the afterlife in this work, mine included, be official. The inspiration behind writing it was I thought about how horrible the aftermath of the ending would be for Nyxis and now you get to experience it too. =’D Special thanks to  Coon for the guardian angel concept. ^^

When Eflasia uses her spring energy, a result of this powerful unpredictable magic is that she also wipes her soul from the normal cycle of life-and-death for mortals. It’s like she never existed, and consequently everyone’s memory of the mortal spring is wiped as well, usually.

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Golden dust-flecked light. I quickly sit up, blinking myself awake. Yawning, the covers come off and I pad to the thin curtains, yanking them open.

Before me, the sun rises over clouds and castletops, hanging rose gardens and flag-studded bridges. The waterfalls of Kingdom Fontis glisten, the morning bells chime, the songbirds chirp. Paradise, as always. Well, on the royal uniform goes.

Usually at this time, Castle Kade bustles with maids and servants, marching guards and huffy foreign diplomats, everyone to their purpose and place. But today, I walk down the echoing corridor silent, the broad plush-carpeted stairs alone. To a long table in the banner-strewn dining hall where no chef or waiter was present, but rose tea, muffin, sausage, and eggs just the way I like them lay in wait on the tabletop.

I scoot the chair up, pick up my knife and fork, and begin cutting little pieces of the egg and putting them into my mouth. Eating isn’t filling up my mind today. I grab a notebook filled with my own writings and drawings, one of several on the wide shelf, and flip through it. There are many inky scribbles of shapes, an incomprehensible single cursive word slashing through pages in some spots with the pen. I pretend I don’t have such horrible handwriting that even I can’t read it. I pretend I can understand the whole sentences I wrote to myself at some point in time that meant something so important I needed to remember them for sure, for ever; but now in my waking moments they make absolutely no sense. I pretend nothing is wrong.

Not needing to eat is wrong. Not needing to sleep is wrong. I’m dead. I’m dead; and this is heaven, but at the same time, how could it ever be? It is an awful paradox of being able to have whatever I want but never know what I want. I am sitting in a living space I conjured out of my memory. In a snap I could turn it into any whimsical setting I can imagine, whip up anyone I want to populate it, will into being any delicacy or mortal bodily task that I want so I can feign familiar comforting functions, like breathing... I let out a deep sigh. At first I was happy. I could see with both of my eyes again, and good God, there was no more pain! But as days passed into weeks into eternity, something was wrong. Something was missing. And no matter how many companions I constructed to dance in ballrooms or chat on hillside picnics, no matter how many friends living in other heavens I went to visit when I just couldn’t bear to pace around in my own golden-crested gardens anymore, I just wasn’t satisfied…

Like an alarm, there is the ringing of a bell from beyond my piece of heaven. It’s not even noon yet. I’m needed already?

Right, it’s hard to explain. I’m not exactly in heaven heaven, moreso one of its lower planes where the same rules apply. I was an usual case when I died, so I was given the equally unusual option of becoming a sort of guardian angel, and such interaction with the physical world requires manifesting my soul in this realm between both planes. Helping people in need is exactly what I did for a living, so I said yes. …but Damn, how many people do you think trade in real heaven for a job? …was that really the only reason I agreed to it?

The ringing of the bell again. It is frantic, more persistent. Alright, hold on, I am coming. Sheathing my sword just in case, I take a leap and dive past the clouds, into a swirling vortex of stars and space and time until the stratosphere lightens into such vivid blue I know it’s time to soften the descent.

Tap. Tap. One talon, then the other gently touch the solid ground. Concrete. The bell sounds very close, almost right at my feet—“Oh.” I take a few steps back, the ringing abruptly stopping as I see my assignment.

There are tire marks on the pavement, and the unpleasantly flattened, almost unrecognizable body of an animal. With almost a hiccup, the ghost of a large four-legged dog rises from it. The glowing golden Labrador-collie shakes his whole ghost body and looks up at me. His eyes widen and he excitedly starts plodding at me. I brace myself just in time as he almost topples me over.

“NYXIS NYXIS NYXIS OHMYGOODNESS I MISSED YOU SO MUCH THERE IS A LITTLE BOY AND HE LOVES ME AND I LOVE HIM BUT I AM SOOO SO SO HAPPY TO SEE YOU AGAIN!”

“You too, Samson.” I ruffle the fur on his head. “You know we can’t stay long.” Sometimes there is enough time for one last goodbye, or even enough time for Samson to stay with me a little while in my construct realm like he had during my days on Earth—but his Boy doesn’t seem to be around, and by the sound of that bell the chance for his next lifetime is coming up fast and it would be plenty of trouble if we missed it. “Let’s go.”

“Woof. Carry me.” With a sigh, I gently heft him into my talons and we fly away, up and into the portal.

Samson seems to always win the lottery. He’s offered, every time, the option for rebirth into a future life, always as a dog or dog-being of some sort. I’ve tried to tell him he can stop when he wants, but every time he is asked if he wants to go back, he says “Yes!,” tail wagging, like it’s a game of fetch. He’s been in this cycle—death, the wiping of memories, rebirth, aging and death again long before I was born. But for how long? And yet his personality from lifetime to lifetime is never unchanged—Always loving, forgiving, loyal. Always Dog. I wonder if his choice is a snowballing of the wisdom of lifetimes that have built him up to have some enlightenment far beyond mortal means, some grand reason he could never convey to my limited mind about how the pain is worth the price of life every time…or if he’s just insane.

In any case, we’ve returned to my portion of Heaven again. Soft clouds swirl about our feet as we land atop a balcony of Castle Kade. A knock on the large double doors downstairs has Samson barking and bounding down first. I follow and creak open the door, Samson wagging jumps outside. A guardian in charge of sorting mortals, this time a crystal-white wolf I know, is already here to greet us. Lyrit converses with Samson, the usual talk. He has been a good dog and he can choose to stay or go…

I know I can construct Samson anytime to live with me at Kade Castle and often do so when I want company, but it doesn’t matter how realistic that construct is. It hurts still to know that’s not actually Samson.

I don’t feel like saying goodbye to him this time. I turn to go back inside.

“Where’s Eflasia?”

“What…what did you say?” I freeze, slowly turning around.

“She’s never here. Where is Eflasia?” Samson repeats.

What’s an eflasia? This word… I don’t know it. But, to think about it brings tears to my eyes. “Eh…fla…shia?” To say it, sobs. I don’t understand. I spent my lifetime serving my good friend King Kade. He was like a father to me. I was a good knight and I died fighting for my ideals of truth and justice. That’s all I remember of my life. Who’s…who’s…

“Sir Pierce, are you alright?” Lyrit asks, its head tilted in concern.

“Yes, there is not much time, just go.” I cough out, composing myself just enough to say.

It takes Samson in its large teeth like he’s a puppy and gently shuts the door, and I am alone…but I am not.

Eflasi…For the first time since my early days here, there is the fleeting feeling of wholeness, of something that has been torn from my life after death.

Efla…It feels like the bizarre dual passion and dependency of pouring myself into this angel work, the feeling of being a hero I still selfishly crave at the core.

Ef…Of Samson’s unconditional Love. It feels like all that, but rolled up into a single thing, or person… How?!

As I frantically finally pick up a pen I knocked over, try as I might I can’t remember that word or what it means. In the notebook it comes out a shaky scribble of shapes, and like the other ramblings in there that might have once tightly held together my universe, it is already gone from my mind, like a stranger I met in a childhood dream.