"Are you conscious, child?" The voice was strange, it sounded like nothing I had ever heard. it resonated in my head like the music of a concert and yet my ears weren't the ones that hurt. the voice was shaking my very mind. After this weird experience, I was reminded by the way the voice had called me of what Gramps Obu used to call me and as I asked myself if he was ok, the voice answered. "Do not worry for the man little one, he is alive."

"How did you know?" I asked out of breath, my voice raspy and dry. The entity that had spoken had its back to me now and seemed to be the only source of light in this weird reflective abyss but I could barely discern a female body in the light. I tried getting back on my feet but was almost instantly hit with a wave of lightheadedness as the space around me warped and turned like a spinning kaleidoscope.

"I would not do that if I were you." the voice now whispered in my head before adding, "Let us go now."

Then instantly and without any sound or perceivable movement, the scenery completely changed around us and we were now in a big open area full of trees and crowned in warm but not overly hot sunlight. Just as I was about to ask her how she had done that, the voice answered in a quiet voice as if to not hurt me, "All your questions will be answered in due time child, now come, follow me."

Without the space warping around me I could finally see the entity that I had been talking to. What I had taken for a body was, in fact, an amalgam of thorny roots and vines in the shape of a woman's dress, floating lightly above the ground. Also, one of her arms was missing up to the elbow and the ripped vines were still leaking a clear reddish substance. Where her head should have been was the skull of what I could only assume was a wolf clad in a long mane of fiery hair that singed her shoulders and back as they waved in the wind.

"Are you not coming?", the entity had asked, now using her normal voice and looking down at me still sitting on the rocky forest path. Realizing that I had been staring at her for the last minute, I shot up to my feet and began following her with a raspy, "Yes!"

As we walked I continued observing her, the end of her tangled vine body moved as each individual end of the vine slithered and writhed slowly from side to side. Her eyes were also intriguing... if they could be called eyes. They were more like empty orbits with a round purple iris that floated where it should have been.

Many minutes passed as we walked on the rocky path before she started talking"Do you know why you are here?" She asked, taken by surprise I could only shake my head.

"Why was I here? I asked myself, trying to find some sort of reason. I knew I had died but what warranted an audience with such a strange entity, I could only guess. With a kind and gentle smile, she answered, "You are here because of suffering. The one you endured and the one you prevented."

"Suffering?" I asked, a bit confused at her answer and body language.

"Let me present myself, I am Dhol'omé, elder goddess of suffering and pain..." She said, and before I could ask questions, she added, "...and I wish to make an offer to you Blake Saunders. One where you could reclaim your life."