A summer trip to Mexico with his close friends. It was supposed to be a fun time, reuniting with old friends from high school. They would enjoy all the local cuisine and tourist sights.

Under the advice of one of their friends, the one who planned the trip, they decided to visit some temples that aren't that famous, those not worn down and littered by tourists. Led by a local tour guide, they arrived at a village close to the outskirts of the city.

Now, I know it's dumb to do such things especially because of the many risks one could face going so far out the city. You could get lost, or meet local gangs. But their friend had popped up the question only after everyone arrived, 3 days into the trip and after everyone had a fun morning doing some early drinking in a restaurant. Drinking in the morning isn't really a smart thing to do but hey, it was a local drink and it had a surprisingly good taste, and high alcohol content.

Under the influence, they were in a jovial mood and were led to the far-out temples. And then, well the screams explain the rest.

"AGhhhhhhhhh"

A guttural yell rang out from the top of a temple, I was stabbed into place from each of my libs, on a pedestal shaped like a square casket.

I looked past the surrounding villagers surrounding and chanting around me towards my friend, our friend who lead us here to a trap.

He looked at me but continued talking in an unfamiliar language to an old man, dressed in ceremonial garb, the fanciest out of all around me.

"Why are you doing this to me, why'd you kill them"

Around the temple, as I was pulled to the top, were the bodies of my friends and also many others. I didn't count but it felt like there were hundreds.

Finally, my friend looked back to me, as the old man left to talk with the villagers, seeming prepping something.

"I'm sorry you have to go through this, but understand its for the greater good, your bod-"

"Why, though, why me? Why"

"I didn't choose you, the elder did, he said there was something special about your body, the best one for him"

Im so confused, and delirious from all the pain and emotional turmoil from the last few hours. Dried tears and blood can be seen on my face as I look toward our friend. His face was slightly downcast.

"Im sor-"

"SHUT UP.. stop your bullshit"

I look forward in the air, I don't want to look at the weasel of a man anymore.

*Steps

Finally, what felt like hours passed as I started into the night sky, the moon somehow looking like it was right above us, before above me I see the old man. I would have tried fighting back, but they did something to me that made my body numb, I couldn't move anything below my head.

The old man now next to me brings out a long gold staff, intricately carved with a shiny crystal rock I don't know on the top. The bottom end of it, sharpened like a spear was brought up.

"FUCk you"

I continued to yell out profanities at them, the only thing I could do. I could have killed myself but, that's not something I would do.

*Stab

"Aghhh"

The screams of a man in pain rang out only to get drowned by the increasingly louder chants of the villagers surrounding him.

The staff now in me, pierced the middle of my chest. It formed a hole in my body, and as I was in pain, it felt like I was slipping away.

But not from consciousness, but from my body.

"what"

I started to fall, starting from the hole that was made, like falling into a whirlpool I was being dragged in.

No longer was I in my body, in front of me I see what originally was my sight, but now it's like Im watching something on a screen, instead the screen is just a circular image of what my eyes are seeing.

"What the fuck"

Around the screen was emptiness, nothing. I started checking my surrounding.

I turned around to see behind me and I see what can only be one thing.

Hell

"Kahhhhhh" "Arhhhhhh" "KYAAA"

In the surrounding area below me a vortex of souls screeching out, mixed with what looks like a fiery red energy warping about.

And then even further, in the center was a sight that burned into my brain only one thing, horror.

"Hah"

With a bare glimpse, I immediately turned back around staring back out and I felt it.

Im scared.

"I can't die like this"

A normal death, Im fine with, accidental or of old age. A car ramming into me, falling down with plane or getting stabbed by a crazy maniac, but a ritual sacrifice leading my soul to the depths of hell, Im not going to take that.

But what can I do.

"Sniff"

Even though no tears were coming out, if souls could even cry, I felt like I was holding back my tears.

"Shit, fuck"

Im special, I know that. I'm not being pretentious, it's just they literally said I was chosen for a reason so I must have something in me that could help. So whatever it is come out.

"Scraahhhh"

Only the screams of hell below can be heard, nothing is happening.

As I kept falling and falling closer, the smoldering energy of the vortex gets ever closer, and I feel my soul sear in pain.

But then I heard something else. I don't know what language it was but for some reason, I understood parts of it.

"Rip… Soul… Stitch… Anew… Eternal One… Preserve…Clan"

And I felt it, as I look out through the view of my body, like a hole of images surrounded by darkness, the old man I saw previously above my body.

Blood seeps out through his orifices, and his body starts falling apart, melting. The flesh oozes down onto what I think is my body and then disappears. As the image gets covered with blood, it slowly starts to clear as the blood disappears.

The old man is no longer there, he's in me.

"Aghh"

Like a push, my body started to fall down faster, as the circular hole to the outside started to get smaller. I felt it, my body isn't mine.

Something is taking away my body. I see it, a bright luminous light forming, taking up my body.

"No, you fucker... stop"

I see the soul. I don't know how or if I should but somehow I see it, its right there in front of me trying to take my body.

"How fucking dare you"

I scream as I bring out my claws at it, even though I thought I would go through the intangible soul, at least I'll be able to release some of my pent-up emotion.

As my hands reached towards it, my hand went through it, but as it clawed through the back of those, it also brought out part of the yellow energy.

"Kahhhh"

Pain, but its not from me. I can see it. The pain of the soul in front of me. And it rejuvenated me. I went wild.

Scratches, claws, a wild fury of blows come out of me as I continued attacking. And with every strike, more energy came out of it. Wisps ran out into the surrounding, brightening up the damned space. But some, without me realizing it, went into me.

If I was looking from afar, I'd see that with every claw, the shimmer of the sol lessened while mine brightened. And something seemed to enter my brain, thoughts, whispers, and images but I was too busy to relish in them.

As I kept clawing, it seemed to finally resist. Turning around the face of a young man is shown in front of me.

"How dare YOU, a measly mortal soul dares fight me"

Even though he looked young, the voice was old, rough and deep. It was the Old man's voice.

"Fuck you"

I smile, seeing his anger and kept clawing, this time aiming at his face.

"You mongr- st-"

His speech was cut by my slashes. And I felt like laughing if it weren't for the stinging pain I feel in my back. The energy of the vortex finally reached me, as I enter the precipice of the vortex, scorching my back.

But what really caught my attention was the energy forming around the old man's hand, and what looked like sigils flowing around it. But I didn't care, I just continued to claw.

*BOOM

Looks like he finished charging up. Finally, the old man shot his hand at me and the energy billowed out at me. Hitting me and pushing me out, but not toward the center of the vortex.

Maybe because of my attacks, the man seemed distracted and unintentionally, he hit me towards the side of the vortex, the surrounding surge of souls and smoldering red energy rather than the center of horror.

The screams of the souls get louder, I turned around to see what could be my eventual doom as I got closer and closer to the torrent.

"SCreachhhh"

The souls, originally spinning around, started reaching out towards me, from the area I was approaching they clawed out towards me, like I did to the old man.

"FUCK ME"

I Screamed as I did so too. If I'm going down, it ain't without I fight. As their claws pulled out from me my deepest memories, I called back at them. I started to forget but at the same time remember.

Their energy into me, and mine into them. I dived deep into the vortex walls. Surrounded, they had more hands. But even though I was attacked more, a single swing of my arm seemed to give me more than what I lost. As I coursed through the red energy and wailing souls.

*Pop

I breached it. Reached the other side of the vortex. The souls tried to keep clawing at me as I get further and further away but I'm no longer there. Im so far away.

Before I knew it, the vortex was but a mere blip of red light . But as I got further and further away, into the deep darkness, I found it harder and harder to pay attention.

Before I knew it, I was out. My soul drifting in space.

A single soul, bright, mixed with bright luminous, and vibrant red energy remixed into one.

Drifting everlastingly. This would be the end of him, a soul who tried fighting back reaching the end of nothingness.

Eternally damned in a state of no wake.

And it would have been, if not for a small light. After an unknown amount of time, the body drifted and reached another area in this space of nothingness.

The small light, as the body got closer, became a giant tree. Yes, a giant tree, colossal in size. A bright white tree, in scale as large as the vortex, with roots surrounding an orb of white light.

As the soul started to drift ever closer to the tree, wisps of light reached out from the tree, towards the soul.

Like a caring mother, it cradled the soul. And inspected him, looked at him. As it did, a small hole opened in the orb that the tree was on. A small orb, like a fruit, started coming down from the top of the tree's branches and it launched in the direction of the hole. But it was stopped.

Bringing its tendrils out, the tree grabbed the fruit and brought it towards the man, and it entered him, now the chaotic energy within the man's soul balanced out, the white light of the fruit forming a thin filament around the soul. After looking at him again, the tree then sent the soul into the hole of the orb.

And the man escaped, from the endless drift of space, into a new world, far far away from where he was originally. He was born once again, but now in a different body.