"Nathan! What do you think would happen when you die?"
"When you die? What kinda question is that?"
"But, hm. I'm.. not sure. I think.. everything just ceases to exist."
"Really? That's super boring."
"What if we get transmigrated to another world or something after we die?"
"Transmigrated..? Ha.. your imagination never ceases to run wild."
"You said that everything disappears after you die, isn't that so you can continue lazing around even after death!"
"Don't be so rude to him, he's still our friend!"
"It's fine. What do you expect? I'm the most boring person in the entire world."
"Haha! But you're our friend, so it doesn't matter at the end of the day! I can't wait for the day that we finally meet each other!"
…
He awoke, disoriented and overwhelmed, as he felt his head nearly explode from the intense headache he was experiencing.
His eyes felt glued shut, so he wasn't able to see anything.
"Was.. was that a memory of mine? But why would I suddenly dream of such a memory, even though I've long since forgotten about it?"
"Why do I feel like I'm stuck in place..? Why is my head aching so much?"
His eyes opened, and he looked around unsure of where he was.
"What..?!? Where am I..?!"
He first noticed that he could not see anything, other than the stars you'd normally find in space, it was almost like he was stuck inside a void.
The fact that it was unusually quiet also unnerved him quite a lot.
All of his five senses were dulled, and he was terrified.
"This must be a dream, right…?"
Weirdly enough, he couldn't feel his face.
It was either that he had lost the feeling in his hands, or his head somehow wasn't there at all.
It was only then that he realised he couldn't feel his own body too.
Even he knew that his panicking brought him nowhere, but what made it so much more worse was the fact that he wasn't able to do anything.
He knew that if he was left in here any longer, he would go insane.
All sound was blocked, which made it difficult to regain his senses, and he knew nothing about the place was in currently, and, he was also unaware of the horrors that would soon await him.
He was trying his best to gather his thoughts, but his fear made that basically impossible.
"Just what did I do to deserve this..? Is this really what happens after death?"
He was severely distressed and emotionally overwhelmed, and to add to that, he had almost no hope left.
Although it had seemed like he had died, he retained all of his past memories, and had even remembered his parents and that he was a child born out of a considerably wealthy family, and his name, Nathan Dexter.
He, who was tall and skinny, awkward yet handsome, who lived a comfortable and secluded life and didn't have to work for most things, found himself in a situation that he had no idea how to get out of.
He thought for a long time, until he finally came to a conclusion.
This was hell that he was brought to.
Now that he had thought properly about it, he was nearly convinced.
He thought that he had lived quite a closed life, and had only committed very few wicked deeds occasionally and, to back that up, he barely went outside for the majority of his entire life, he was sheltered from the outside.
He was sure had actually ended up in actual hell, and the moment he became fully convinced, all hope of finding a way out of this place dispersed in an instant.
He shouted out as loud as he could, in hopes that a miracle would occur and someone could hear him, but, as expected, no one came.
A single word to describe this moment would be the word, torturous.
To not be able to do anything to stop your fate, and knowing that you might be suffering for eternity.
Simply tortuous.
As his last resort, he tried to break free of what was restraining him.
Struggling for what truly seemed like an eternity.
At one point, everything felt odd, as if he was swimming in some sort of strange watery liquid, it was clear that all the feeling in his body had been restored, yet, he still couldn't move.
After a while, he saw something, which looked awfully like a a purplish rift forming outside the boundaries of space itself, and it seemed to be quite far away.
He also noticed a long, long time ago, that his body was gradually starting to corrode and fade away, and he realised that this might be the only opportunity for him to escape.
He moved his body towards the direction of the rift, but he still couldn't move.
"Let me… let me go!!" He shouted, but whatever it was, it's hold on his body only grew tighter.
"Let me go.. NOW!" He yelled as loud and as fiercely as he could, he could not stand this tortuous hell any longer, and if he needed to sacrifice something, anything, to escape, he most definitely would.
Finally, and it was due to his undying will, he escaped, and he rushed to the rift as fast and as quickly as he possibly could.
His body had almost completely dissipated into nothingness, and at the last second, he..
"No.. No..!" The tip of his finger had touched the rift, and, he could see [it] for a split second, an otherworldly realm on the other side of the rift.
But, his existence was fading, and..
He died for the first time.
"No…!"
His eyes closed shut.
"…."
A gaze fell upon him, the gaze, of a god.
As it turns out, the universe that Nathan came from, was not the only universe.
These universes, and those gods, they all originate from one source.
And that is..
His eyes opened, and the first thing he saw was a veil of blinding light enveloping him, and under the gaze of a god, he felt his existence subtly glitching for a split second.
There was only one word repeating in his mind, and that was the word, "survive."
The light slowly disappeared, and he materialised from thin air, and he fell a few meters from the air, face flat onto the ground.
"What the fuck?!.."
There were shouts of surprise coming from the people surrounding him, but he couldn't hear anything, as he was disoriented and he didn't yet know there was others here as well.
No one there helped him off the ground, so it was safe to say that they were too stunned to speak.
"What the hell..?!"
"..Wha..?"
He noticed that he was in a field, with tons of trees and grass surrounding him.
the people who were standing around him, who all seemed to be young adults, were staring at him in a peculiar manner.
"Where.. Who…?"
He didn't even know what to say, wary of the eyes that were watching him closely.
They all continued to stare at him, almost as if he was some kind of alien creature, which made him even more nervous and even more uncomfortable.
"Are you..?"
They couldn't muster up the courage to actually speak to Nathan, who was still wary of them.