Afterlife Chapter 1

[Surreptitious Cardboard Box]

Kichi, ‘The Golden Antlers’ Hotel
Of all the towns and villages Felix Angelus had visited since his death - and there were quite a few; he never stayed long in one place - Kichi was the only one that had an hotel or inn of sorts. When he’d arrived there, Felix had been rather relieved to discover The Golden Antlers, for he had been travelling for much of the day, and although he did not ache - fortunately, the afterlife somehow prevented everyone from feeling any form of pain, so it was impossible to feel discomfort - he was at least very tired, and suddenly stumbling upon a place of respite seemed like very good fortune indeed. The hotel was only half-filled with patrons, and it had been easy enough for him to find a spare room, so when he awoke early the next morning, he was able to leave quietly without causing any disturbances.

There were two roads that led out of the village, and he took the one that he hadn’t yet trodden along; just the previous day, he had travelled from the village of Brandt Britch, through a large forest, and he did not wish to go back in that direction just yet. The other path travelled north eventually, he had been told, though there were no signposts to alert him as to where he was headed for. Nevertheless, he pushed on, leaving the village main road for the dusty dirt path that wound onward through endless fields of buttercups. He’d ventured down many a pathway or worn track without ever knowing his destination, simply because the afterlife gave him the freedom to do so. This journey would be no different.

[Richard El Britannia]

[ooc]LET'S DO THIS THANG![/ooc]

Yellow. As Jack's eyes slowly opened, all he saw was yellow. As his eyes adjusted to the light, he realised he was looking at a field full of bright flowers. 'Are they ... buttercups?' Jack thought, pushing himself slowly from the dusty path. He spun slowly on the spot, taking everything he could see in. To the south, if you were to follow the path, you would eventually meet a small town. To the north, the path just kept going and it was the only thing visible for miles. To the east and west, simply buttercups. Hundreds, upon thousands of buttercups.

Jack scratched his head, in confusion. Why was he here? Last he remembered, was a pain in his back and his vision slowly dimming. He concluded that someone must've dumped him here. Why, though, he had no idea.

He looked north and south a few times, trying to decide where to go, until he saw a man walking from the direction of the town. 'I can ask him where I am,' Jack decided, slowly walking down to meet the man.

[Surreptitious Cardboard Box]

It had been Felix's intention to leave early so as to not be distracted by other peoples' wants and needs. However, as he continued up the path, Felix became increasingly aware that there seemed to be somebody else nearby. He continued onwards, his pace unchanged, his temperament unperturbed, and as he grew closer, he discovered that the object which he had noticed was indeed a person. It was a man, skinny and gaunt and rather dishevelled looking. Presumably he was lost, or at least bewildered by something, for he kept turning around to take in the environment, looking at Felix questioningly, as though expecting him to answer the questions that had not even been asked.
Felix supposed that it was probably best to at least check the man was alright, even if he wasn't particularly interested in helping him. He stepped nearer somewhat awkwardly. "Are you alright?" he asked the man.

[Otzlowe]

A tall man, wearing fairly ragged clothing trundled slowly down the road, toward the village. Instead of walking on the road itself, he walked off to the side, through all the flowers, occasionally stopping to look around, and think to himself. Some time before he could realize what he was looking at, he spotted two vaguely man-sized lumps over the horizon. At first he passed them off for large stones, and continued to walk down through the field of buttercups.

When he eventually came close enough to see what the 'stones' were, he realized that they were moving, and must be people... or large animals, he thought. Normally, he would have looked for a place to hide, but with all the small buttercups, and sparse numbers of trees, he'd have stuck out in all the bright yellow despite his efforts. One of the men wore unfamiliar clothing, and looked somewhat clean-cut to him. The other... appeared to be wearing ragged, loose clothing as well, but clothing he'd not seen much of. The peculiar part is, despite all his time here, he'd never seen another person. He spent to much time in the mountains, and wilderness, he'd never run into someone other than himself.

His curiosity took hold of him, and compelled him to question them. He walked closer, but didn't get closer than a few feet to either one. He didn't exactly want them to turn out to be something that would kill him... again. He grunted, in hopes to get their attention, words escaping him, after not having used them for so long.

[Surreptitious Cardboard Box]

Felix was so distracted by the second man who had suddenly appeared that he stepped nearer to him, rudely walking past the first man before he'd even had the chance to answer Felix's question.
"Excuse me," he said, not entirely sure how to approach him. "Was there something you wanted?" He couldn't help but notice that this man was even scruffier than the first. Thin man was at least wearing what were recognisably jeans and a t-shirt, even if they were rather worn, yet Scruffy appeared to be adorned in nothing more than rags. The pieces of cloth covering his body were riddled with holes, rendering them almost pointless, and they had been affected by extreme discolouring and stains, as though they had not been washed for years.
Felix did not want to seem rude, but he could not help but wrinkle his nose at the man.

[Otzlowe]

"Wha..." Oliver's voice cracked, and he couldn't help but turn and cough, the process of speaking feeling a bit odd, "What... are... you?" His voice sounded raspy, and his pronunciations were mostly off, making him sound as though he may well have been deaf. He eyed the two men uncomfortably. Never having seen someone else in all his years here, and all at once, here he finds two men... who look... different. He'd not seen their sort of dress on anyone before. He couldn't help but have a quizzical look on his face as he looked at that pair.

[Surreptitious Cardboard Box]

Felix frowned, bemused. "I'm hoping the same as you. Born and died on Earth, reborn here, right? Humans. At least, we were. I hope we still are."
The man sounded foreign, but of course the afterlife's abilities at least made it so that whatever language other people spoke, Felix would still hear it as English. This man's nationality, however, he could not pinpoint. Perhaps if he was cleaned and wearing new clothes, it would be easier to make out his features.

[Otzlowe]

Oliver stared at the man as if he were an idiot, "But... I died? I thought this was... hell, or something. I thought I was doomed to wander alone, forever." He looked around him as if he'd never seen any of this 'world' before.
A sudden thought hit him, and his face gave away his intrigue, "Does that mean... does that mean you're both dead too...?" He started scratching his arm, partly to reassure himself that he felt as alive as ever, but couldn't shake the memory of falling to his death. These ideas, raced through his mind, and he suddenly felt a desire to know everything about where, and what they were in. "Where are we? Are there more people? Is everyone here dead? What is this place?" In actuality, the man looked as though he were asking himself all these questions, but his eyes were wide, almost as if in fear.

[Richard El Britannia]

"Dead? As in ... not alive?"

Jack's eyes widened and he took a long step back. "I thought I was just ... dumped here." Jack turned around to look at the area again, as if he was seeing something completely different to before. As he turned around, the small knife that Jack had not noticed in his back, stuck out visibly to the other two men.

"So. This is ... heaven? It certainly doesn't look like hell ..."

[Surreptitious Cardboard Box]

Felix laughed at how perturbed both of the men seemed. How they couldn't have already worked it all out for themselves was completely beyond him. "C'mon guys ... you're kidding right?" The fact that they were dead was as obvious the day was light. He himself had known it from the moment he'd awoken in the world, all those years ago. "Look," he said to the skinny kid, "it's an afterlife of sorts, but not necessarily what you might call 'Heaven'. There's no way to say whether it's one place or another, and for all we know, neither of those places even exist anyway, right?"
He closed his eyes, rubbed his temple, and sighed. "At a guess, I'd say everyone here is the same off as us. If you take the time to stop, you'll notice you're not even breathing. We're not living here, pal, we just are here. Anyone who's not dead must be as freaky as they get."

He considered giving them an overtly suspicious look just for amusement, but disspelled the thought almost as soon as it came. It wouldn't be fair to scare these two off with accusations when they appeared so genuinly perplexed. "Well anyway, time's wearing on, an' all that. I must be going." He nodded politely to the two, then before they could say another word, strode on past them both. He'd taken but two steps when he spun round and looked at Mr. Skinny, unable to resist the urge to tease him just a little. "By the way, kid, 'blade-back' ain't exactly in fashion at the moment, though I suppose it beats 'scraggly-beard' any day, eh?" he added, eyeing the scruffier man. And with that, he started to leave.

[Otzlowe]

Oliver tugged at his beard slightly, crossing his arms, "Well, s'pose they call you Princess 'round here, do they?" He nodded slightly, as if he was considering something, "Well, maybe where you're from that's in style, but... for men... really now." He hid a grin behind a hand stroking his beard.
"How'd you die then? Step in mud, ruin your dress and die of grief?" He motioned toward the kid on the ground, "'Least he an' I died reasonably. He got stabbed, I fell off a cliff."

He yawned, "That aside, you mean to say that there's more than us here? I've been wandering through the mountains for years now, and you're the first people I've seen beside myself." He'd bypassed the notion that he'd stopped breathing, noticing it some time ago, even if he didn't make anything of it. "... And, if we're dead, what are you bothering to do? What'll it get you, here? We don't exactly need food, either." He looked at 'Princess' suspiciously, almost forgetting the kid next to him.

[Richard El Britannia]

Jack started ignoring everything anyone was saying after he realised Oliver had just said he had been stabbed. His eyes widened and sweat started to bead on his forehead. "Good lord, there's a knife in my back ..." he muttered to himself, barely audible to anyone else. To him, the shock of learning they were dead wasn't as bad as learning there was a knife sticking out of his back.

He felt around on his back feebly and felt the knife. Instantly, he almost jumped out of his skin and instinctively, his hand bolted away from the knife. "Hey! Somebody get this out of me!" He shouted in fear and desperation. For the looks on his face, it looked like he wanted to run around and scream like a little girl.

[Surreptitious Cardboard Box]

Felix had not got far before the thin man turned up again, streaking past and screeching for all to hear. The man was hopeless and panicky and really getting on Felix's nerves. As he ran through the buttercup-peppered fields, his feet tore up the ground, bringing up chopped weeds and the small golden, buttery-looking flowers.
Felix sighed. "Look kid," he called out to the man as he tore past again, his arm twisted behind him. "You're ruinin' all the nature and disturbing my peace time." He waited for him to turn his way again before continuing to speak to him. "If you're gonna scream, do it someplace else, where I'm not at."

[Richard El Britannia]

Jack didn't know whether to shout at the man or ask for help. His pride made him want to shout, but being cowardly, he asked for help. "Err ... Think you can ... take the knife out?" He then realised the knife in his back didn't hurt. "Hey, you know about this place," he said, calming down a little and facing the man. "Why is there no pain?" Jack really didn't like not knowing things.

[Surreptitious Cardboard Box]

Felix almost considered saying no, but he didn't want to seem a bad person. It was understandable that the kid would want for the knife to be pulled out, and if that was the weapon with which he'd been killed, then no doubt he'd want to at least get a good look at it. "I already told you. You're dead. There's no way you could feel pain if you ain't even living, is there? Now turn around."
He stood directly behind him, planting his feet firmly on the ground, half a metre between them, and placed his hands tightly around the hilt of the blade. "Bend forward slightly, and keep still, kid," he growled softly.
He tugged at the blade, gently at first, so as to not alarm the kid, and then once he'd seen how deep it had gone, he pulled it clean out. The wound was deep, possibly paralysing, but that didn't matter now. "Here," he said, handing the knife over. "That's gonna clean up nice and fast. It'll be all nice and healed over an' you won't even be able to remember where it was, soon.