The mists welcomed him, but the light startled him.

  He wasn’t prepared to die. He’d left behind too much. He had plans. Some of them seemed mundane since he was dead. Why was living in that neighborhood so important? Crime was practically nonexistent in the Union, but had he made the wrong decision? He had a wife and a son; dying meant leaving them.

  The darkness had settled over his eyes like wet fog. He’d felt warm until he saw the light. The light created definition, and the mist in his eyes transformed from a fog to a tunnel. He was suspended, unmoving, but moved. Why did he have a body? The mists drew in close, and the tunnel grew narrower, the light grew brighter, and the haze thinned until his feet touched the ground. The thick grass under his feet was flattened—well-trodden but still green.

  “Fintan!” the voice called. It was familiar. Was that his grandfather? There was a heaven after all. Every step felt like walking on air, and his favorite shoes sunk into the green grass as if underneath that layer was something spongy and then firm.

  There were many other people, but he didn’t recognize them. They surrounded him like they were looking for something. They called out names he didn’t know; most were in Western, but a few were in Eastern.

  “Fintan!” the familiar voice called again.

  Fintan didn’t want to be in heaven, and he absolutely didn’t want to be surrounded by a bunch of strangers. He wanted to be with his grandfather.

  His grandfather would have the answers.

  He Stepped. His wife said he had fast feet. She couldn’t keep up when they went for a run. It was almost as if his legs moved independently of his body. He used it to his advantage. He would show up in unexpected places. It almost gave him sort of a sixth sense watching other people try to find him as he disappeared. It was like knowing where they were without seeing them.

  His grandfather appeared in front of him, more youthful than he recalled, as if the old man was aging in reverse. He couldn’t be much older than Fintan’s father.

  When Fintan appeared in front of him, the old man almost fell over in surprise, but the hands of the masses kept him from falling.

  “You’ve leveled up already, boy?” the old man asked. “Sheesh.”

  His grandfather knocked on his head with his knuckles and listened as if he could hear an echo.

  Fintan wasn’t sure how the old man could hear anything at all, as the calls were so loud.

  “How many skills do you think you have in there?” his grandfather asked.

  “I don’t know,” Fintan said honestly. He wasn’t sure what a skill was except in the generic sense, and his grandfather seemed to be talking about something else entirely.

  “What are you saying, boy?” his grandfather asked loudly. The old man looked younger but was still hard of hearing. “We can’t stay here. Only the stupidest ideas stay close to the portal. Come this way.”

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  Fintan nodded. He found his grandfather, and he trusted him. His grandfather wore the same clothes he wore in life. He was a doctor, and he had a white lab coat over his dress slacks and a high-collared shirt. Unlike Fintan’s running shoes, his grandfather wore dress shoes. They had flat bottoms made from faux wood and should have been slippery in the wet grass, but his grandfather pushed politely past the others on the field as if he was made of stone and they were air balloons in human shape.

  It was terribly crowded, but after an intense half-hour of walking, Fintan could see trees in the distance, and much of the mist had evaporated. The ambient light brightened the day, but Fintan couldn’t find the sun. He didn’t see any clouds, just a perfectly white sky.

  “I am dead,” Fintan said. His last memories were not happy ones. Some unsavory people had shown unusual interest in his wife and son. He’d been warned to run away by a crazy old man, but instead, he stayed and fought.

  And lost.

  People didn’t get into physical fights in the Union. He’d misjudged the confrontation badly. He thought contacting peace enforcement was enough.

  “As near as I can tell, boy,” his grandfather admitted, “but death isn’t the end. At least not the final end.” His grandfather swung a hand low into the fading mist and brought out a malt strawberry shake complete with a cherry and straw. Fintan gawked, and his grandfather sucked on the straw with obvious pleasure before asking, “Aren’t you going to get one?”

  Uncertain, Fintan reached into the mist. His grandfather’s challenge was also an invitation to a memory, and he recalled the malt shakes they ‘d made themselves. Fintan’s favorite was chocolate. The powdered chocolate was expensive, and he remembered the flavor as if it was embedded into his being.

  From out of the mists, his hand returned with a shake in a molded glass cup, complete with a straw and a cherry, just as he remembered.

  He put his lips to the straw and tasted the chocolate and the grainy flavor. It was a perfect recreation.

  “I can create things with my mind,” Fintan said. “Another skill.”

  “It’s not a skill, boy; everyone can do it. The mists are thick here. Manifesting is easy. Inside the towns, even the villages, manifesting is hard. Some say it's even worse in the dry lands. I’ve never been there, but they say you have to carry water. If you stay too long, you will throw yourself into the ocean.”

  “How can a land be so dry near the ocean?” Fintan asked.

  “It’s the afterlife, boy,” his grandfather said. “This one doesn’t come with a manual. There are rules, but all the water has to go somewhere.”

  His grandfather turned and waved him along beside him. As they approached the tree line, he found a path wide enough for them to walk together. The path wasn’t straight. It wound around obstacles and generally went higher. Although not mountainous, they definitely gained altitude. The size of the trees increased from short, branching water oaks that looked like they were topped into a topiary to wider mangroves that grew out of the ground with sprouting roots spreading into bushy splendor. Everything seemed healthy, much healthier than the plants he remembered from life.

  They walked upward, but Fintan felt like he was walking downhill, and his grandfather’s long strides ate the turf.

  “Everything is so easy here,” Fintan said. “But this is it. There is no way out.”

  “Easy?” his grandfather said. “No, it's not easy. I’m not even sure if there is no way out or if this is just a trap. Only the gods would know, and they left before I got here.”

  “There is a God?” Fintan said, awed. He should have guessed from the afterlife.

  “Gods. Plural. Only one is left, though. The Adversary. If there is a way out, he knows it. As to how easy it is, it's always easy to walk toward water. Try turning around.”

  His grandfather stopped, waiting for Fintan to conduct his experiment. Something you had to learn by trying yourself, especially when it worked in reverse to common sense.

  Fintan took a step backward down the well-trod path. His leg went down the slope, and he expected the momentum to push him along. The wind was at his back, but he slogged and stumbled, pulling himself forward as if his effort went into a climb.

  “Why is it this way?”

  “All things go to the ocean, eventually. Sometimes, it takes longer. Some people last longer. We came here from the mists, and we return to the water when our will to fight runs out. Eventually, we are all consumed."