When Toren opened his eyes for what felt like the first time, every part of his body felt cold.
It was not much to the point his flesh felt freezing, but more like the temperature of a Christmas breeze. The wintry air that sticks on your skin like snowflakes slowly melting across.
His eyelids were heavy and his sight was blurry.
There was a perpetual darkness where he floats around as if an ounce of gravity does not even exist. The darkness was not as black as hole, but more like a night sky at the middle of dusk where demons are allegedly alive.
Soon, he could finally hear his own heartbeat and soft breathing.
Until now, he felt like he was beneath the undertow, yet he did not feel the need to struggle to resurface.
Toren moved his limbs inch by inch until his consciousness had fully lived into his brain now. At the distance of the perpetual dark space, he could see trailing lines bordering him circularly.
It was a bright, crimson thread flowing round and round where he floats in the middle of it.
He could slowly feel an invisible force pulling him closer to his east, sucking him in at the crimson thread.
The force kept on getting heavier and heavier until he could no longer control his own body because of the massive pressure that surrounded him.
He closed his eyes and noticed the flashing spectrum brightly go past his eyes.
And soon, everything stopped altogether.
He could finally feel something solid and vivid as the tornado-like force brought him somewhere existing. He felt a hard ground underneath him and an old, muddy air wrapping his skin.
The familiar streaks of sunlight had also penetrated through his closed eyes, so he slowly opened them and looked around.
It was almost as if he got transported into a different world and in a different timeline.
Toren rubbed his eyes, shook his head aggressively, and glanced around the place over and over again. He breathed heavily along his wild heartbeat, marveling at the environment in the middle of a hot, bustling city.
He struggled to stand up, feeling his wobbly feet to get finally accustomed into steadying itself.
It felt like years since he got up when it had only been a few hours from his perception of time.
The people wore finer robes and dressed with accessories and rode with horses and carriages.
He noticed his own nonexistence when a couple of children began running towards him, but only went past him.
It was not similar to being a ghost.
His soul existed in the earth when he was a ghost, but this time, he was a complete spectator. His perceptions, he believed, are present at this moment, but his soul is locked at a different place.
He does not know anything much yet, but he was quite sure that things have long ended ever since he crossed the line of life and death.
This privilege experience may have been caused by the strange bargain he had back then or maybe a glitch within the transfer of souls to purgatories. Anyhow, the peculiar scenario was absolutely dreamy.
None of these suggested reality and truth from his perspective.
While walking around, getting passed by people, he noticed a familiar cave from the distance.
He went near it, attempting to recall where he had seen the deep cave.