I did not know I had died.
I thought I had simply fallen, struck by stone and darkness and the indifference of gravity.
But when I opened my eyes, the world had no weight to it.
The sky was a color I have never seen in the waking world—a bruised twilight that neither brightened nor deepened. It was as though someone had paused the heavens mid-breath. Clouds hung motionless, shaped like unfinished thoughts. There was no sun, yet everything was dimly visible, as if illuminated by memory rather than light.
The grass beneath me was damp and cool, and when I pressed my hand into it, it left no impression. It smelled of rain that had fallen centuries ago, of soil long forgotten, of incense burned for prayers no one remembered.
I tasted earth and iron on my tongue.
I reached for my sword and felt only air.
My armor was gone. My holy symbol was gone. I felt naked—not in body, but in faith. As if someone had stripped away the scaffolding that held my belief upright.
A man stood nearby.
He looked at me with tired eyes and a crooked smile, as though death were a minor inconvenience. A piece of his skull was missing, and I could see mist moving where his thoughts should have been. He called himself Weasel.
His voice sounded hollow, as if it echoed inside a cavern even when he whispered. When he spoke, his words felt heavier than the air, settling into the grass like dust.
He told me not to follow the lantern in the distance. He said crowds walk toward it like moths and call it peace. He said his uncle warned him about that, once.
I listened to him, but the Light did not speak.
That frightened me more than his wound.
The sky screamed.
I felt the sound before I heard it—like a pressure behind my eyes, a vibration in the bones I no longer trusted to be real. The Nightwing descended from the sky, wings tearing at the stillness like knives through cloth. Its shadow felt cold, and its breath tasted like old regrets.
When it struck me, its venom burned with memories that were not mine. I felt every doubt I had ever buried flare to life. I felt every prayer I had ever wondered was unanswered press against my heart.
I remember thinking, So this is how I end—without armor, without prayer, without dignity.
Then I woke again.
The second time, I knew I was not alive.
The air did not move. My breath did not fog. The world had the texture of a held note, sustained until it became unbearable.
Sound carried strangely. Footsteps echoed long after feet stopped moving. My own heartbeat sounded distant, like a drum played in another room. When I spoke, my words returned to me altered, as though someone else had repeated them with different meaning.
I walked toward a tavern because souls, it seems, gather where stories gather. The boardwalk creaked beneath me, but the sound felt symbolic rather than structural, as though the wood was acting out a memory of creaking.
Inside, the tavern smelled of stale ale, dust, old wood, and the faint sweetness of flowers left at graves. The patrons were frozen in small tragedies: a bride tracing circles on a glass, a pilgrim whispering apologies into his cup, a fisherman staring into his hands as if still holding a net.
Their voices were soft, overlapping like prayers spoken by people who did not believe they would be heard.
Behind the bar stood a woman whose eyes reflected things I had never seen. When she looked at me, I felt cataloged, as though I were a footnote in a cosmic ledger.
She told me this place was the Vale of Sleep.
She told me belief shapes this realm, that thought and faith are architecture here. When she spoke, the walls subtly shifted, like a house listening to a conversation.
I did not like her.
But the Light was still silent, and her words had weight.
The manor was the worst part.
The forest around it was quiet in a way that made my ears ache. Leaves did not rustle. Insects did not sing. Even the ground seemed reluctant to remember footsteps. The house loomed like a prayer that had been abandoned halfway through.
Inside, dust hung in the air like unspoken words. Every room smelled of candle smoke and cold stone and disappointment.
The paladins were still kneeling.
Their armor was rusted into their bones. Their tabards were threadbare banners of forgotten vows. When they spoke, their voices layered atop each other, a choir of resignation.
Their words felt like cold hands around my wrists.
They told me hope was cruelty, that waiting was a lie, that prayer was a way to starve with manners. They told me the gods reward obedience with silence.
And for a moment, I believed them.
The Light was distant—present, but thin, like sunlight seen through deep water. I felt my connection to it stretch like a thread drawn too tight. I felt the weight of every unanswered prayer I had ever uttered.
I felt how easy it would be to stop.
I have never told anyone how tempting that was.
The sword was simply there.
It did not glow until I touched it. It did not sing until I believed in it. The hilt felt warm, like a hand grasping mine in the dark. When I lifted it, I felt the Light laugh—not mockingly, but with something like relief, as if it had been waiting for me to make up my mind.
The fallen knights began to fade. Their despair peeled away like old paint. I felt their gratitude like a pressure behind my eyes, like tears that were not mine.
Forgiveness has weight.
It almost knocked me to my knees.
The Nightwing returned.
The sky felt closer, pressing down on the ruins. The air tasted sharp, like lightning before a storm. The creature’s presence made the world feel smaller, like a room with too many regrets in it.
I felt fear. I felt anger. I felt exhaustion.
But beneath it all, I felt something new: ownership of my faith.
I prayed, but not as I had been taught. I did not ask permission. I did not ask for intervention. I said only, I will not despair.
The Light surged—not from above, but from within and around and through me. It felt like stepping into a river that had always been flowing, whether I noticed or not.
The battle was chaos—wings, claws, light, venom, memory. The Nightwing did not die. It unraveled. It fled like a story that no one believes anymore.
When it vanished, the sky breathed again.
When I woke, the world had weight.
Air moved. Sunlight hurt. My armor was heavy. My sword was real.
My friends’ voices were loud and imperfect and alive. Their prayers had found me, somehow. Or perhaps I found myself.
Holding the sword, I felt something terrifying and holy.
Sometimes the gods answer.
Sometimes they delegate.
Sometimes we are the answer.
In the Vale, the Light did not leave me.
It waited to see what I would do without certainty.
Unprompted Addendum: On Faith
In the Vale, faith felt less like a command and more like gravity.
Not something imposed, but something fundamental—inescapable, shaping everything.
I realized I had always believed through the Church, through my armor, through ritual.
There, stripped of all of it, belief was naked.
It was not comfortable.
It was not obedient.
It was powerful.
If the Church asks, I still believe.
If the scholars ask, I still doubt.
If the people ask, I still hope.
But I will never again assume hope is someone else’s responsibility.
