Chapter 6

Huh..?

He floated through space and time.

Flying past lights and dark figures.

He had died.

He felt his soul pulling away from him. He tried grasping it but he didn't have any arms to move.

He flew past life, he flew and flew past death.

Everything was white and he felt nothing.

He had died.

And now...

"AH!!"

He was alive again.

"AAH! AH!!!"

He sputtered around on the floor, the pain so real he felt it everywhere in his body.

His life had been lost, he had died, and his organs had been torn out of him through his throat. His bones had been broken so slowly that he had felt every second.

His eyes had been pierced from inside his skull and he had died.

"AAAAHHH!!! AHHHHH!!!"

He was panicking so much it hurt.

Twitching on the floor, he grabbed at his own body to try and feel the parts of him that had been broken. That had been lost against that thing.

Why did it hurt so much?

Hadn't he died?

"Ha.. ha.. ha..."

He stopped screaming and held his own body in his arms, embracing his legs and wagging back and forth.

The pain had stopped although that's not what he felt. It took a while for him to calm himself down to a sane level.

He had thrown up on the floor too. It wasn't his intention, but he hadn't been fully sane after what had just happened.

It wasn't weird, he only remembered the rough fingers of that something that had mashed his internal organs to bits while it was inside of him.

"Meno..." He said in a broken voice, last time he had used it was before his vocal cords had been ripped out of his throat.

Meno, the black cat that had accompanied him, was dead.

He hadn't been able to stop it, heck, he hadn't even tried to.

They both had been victims of death, only, Han hadn't died, had he?

Meno had died in front of him, and he had no power to stop it. The dagger Meno had used had been cast away by a hand and Meno's entire body had been violently mashed into the ground, turning him into a few stains of blood and muscle in a fraction of a second.

They hadn't had a chance in that cave.

When he now thought about it... Where even was he?

He stared around the room, still in so much shock he could only waggle back and forth with his arms wrapped around his legs as if to stop them from falling off of him.

He was inside The Gray Rooms.

"Ah-!"

He got up despite his legs not working fully after them slowly being broken.

He was nauseous and dizzily waggled towards the white door in the room, holding back the urge to throw up again as he tripped outside, his vision blurry from tears that were from the memories from before.

He continued tripping out of the other gray room and continued down the hallway, getting closer and closer to the rainbow door that was his exit out of there.

"Cloud... Meno..."

He murmured those words as he came out into the room where the two strange and colorful figures had been.

He grasped the door handle and practically threw the rainbow door wide open, continuing to tumble into the following gray room.

They were way fewer than last time, but his legs didn't work as they should. Despite this, he walked, up those stairs that lead to a hell beyond anything else.

What was Cloud going to say when she got to know what had happened to Meno?

Would she blame him?

Was he blaming himself?

Meno hadn't been dear to him, they had known each other for maybe an hour or two.

But both of them had accepted him even tho he was an outsider, and despite their teasing, they seemed to care about what would happen to him strangely enough.

But would he care about them as much as they cared about him?

Did he even care about them in the first place?

Or were they just people that he thought he could benefit from?

The disgusting thought made him want to give up his fight if he was fighting.

People who cared about him were people that he should care about, right?

And why was he selfish enough to think of himself in a moment like this? A moment when someone who cared about him died, shouldn't he be grieving their death now?

But he knew that he didn't have time to grieve. He had to tell Cloud, no matter what.

He was starting to panic again. Who was going to help him now? Where would he go? Would he stay there and bear the shame of a close one's death? Would he continue fighting to get back to his world? Or would he lie down on that staircase and die?

But. Hadn't he already died? Repeated the question in his head.

Well yeah, he must've.

But why then? Why was he still here, still alive?

He did not know. He could not put his finger on the answer for he did not know anything.

Meno had been right. He didn't know how to use the information given to him in any way. He only knew about The Gray Lands. But how could he go back there after Meno's death? After he let Meno die?

He stopped.

This was as far as he could go.

Here, he would give up and lay down and die again. Die. Die. Die.

He felt his knees giving up under him.

What purpose did he have there?

Why should he care?

Meno had died, who else will die? If he continues his journey, maybe he dies again, and again.

One more death was enough, a death that would grant him death forever. Right?

What was wrong with him?

Why had he let it all slip through his fingers?

He did not understand.

Why did Meno have to die?

And why, can't I be even half as strong as him and continue?!

His determination was set ablaze again, but his anxiousness cooled that flame down, killing it with its cold hands.

Hands, who ripped him apart, hands who mashed Meno's body to pieces.

He couldn't let Meno's death be forgotten.

He had to tell Cloud.

Rise Han, rise! A voice told him.

And so he did.

He shouldn't lose, he couldn't lose, and he wouldn't lose.

All of them were just words, words with meaning, and words that gave him meaning.

Rise Han, rise! 

"I will!"

He helped himself up by his knees and continued walking.

Death. Death had seen him in the eyes. But death had no face, so death would lose.

Even if he had to die, he would do it, right?

Grasping the top of the stairs, he pulled himself up to the top of the stairs.

His resolve strong, his determination set, he would tell Cloud. And he would live.

"Meno-!"