Chapter Text
Phil was right in front of me, and to my right was my burning country. There was nothing anyone could do anymore, fate was sealed and the future would be as I decided it would be, as my choices and my actions made it. I wasn’t thinking of anyone, or even of anything anymore. All that was coming to my head was the question of what side my body would fall to. When the fire started spreading through my body, and the pain hit, I had a vision of falling to my left, the weakest side of me giving in first, and the ground receiving me into its arms. But I actually fell to the right, and that is what started it all.
I fell through the air.
To my surprise — and I would never find out why — I woke up. I opened my eyes and I could see through them, I could breathe through my nose, and I could feel my heart beat.
“How?” was my initial question. How could I be awake? And not feeling any pain, only a little discomfort on my right arm? I burned and fell off more than fifty feet. Phil killed me right then, I knew it, I remembered dying. There, when I woke up, the memory was still fresh. I had definitely died. I had felt my soul, my spirit, or whatever that was, leaving my body and making my life cease to exist.
But apparently, I was completely wrong. I blinked a few times, trying to make out what my surroundings were. I had never seen that place before, and there was also no one around. I seemed to be in a hospital, but that wasn’t anywhere that I knew. I searched for a window to check what the weather in the area was but there weren’t any.
I finally started feeling my body completely, moving around a little bit, noticing that I had been sitting down in a bed. The discomfort on my arm became more noticeable, as I moved everything that seemed to have been still for days. I could now feel my fingers, move my feet... and that’s when I noticed it all.
I first noticed I wasn’t wearing normal clothes. The hospital clothes fit me well though. There were even socks on my feet, as the room was cold enough for me to need them. Then I saw the food in front of me, sitting carefully on a small table. A sandwich, half-eaten, somehow. A drink that looked like orange juice inside a plastic cup, looking untouched.
The third thing I noticed was the time. The clock on the wall said it was 17:16. And if I wasn’t mistaken, that was around the time that everything had happened.
And so I closed my eyes. I accepted that it was the afterlife. I had once thought it would be a hospital room with no windows and a single clock on the wall, but who hadn’t? With my life in L’Manberg, my people and my duties, I had a lot of time to think about what would happen to me once my time was over.
And now it was happening. I allowed myself to get lost in the nothingness of my head, in the discomfort of my arm.
That is when I saw it. When I finally looked down. My arm was in a cast. It was covered from the shoulder down to the fingers. My legs looked damaged too, and had a few patches on them. Why did the afterlife have all that? And everywhere I looked, everywhere I searched on myself,
No signs of burning.
I think that is when I realized that I had no idea what was going on. My head now was starting to become alert, and I started to question everything. Why do I still have a human body, how does this work? Why do I feel pain? And why does the afterlife feel the same as real life, if not more unreal?
“This is why I’m not religious,” I whispered to myself, my voice coming out weak. I coughed. And then I arranged my back on the bed, being careful not to use my damaged right hand.
“Wilbur Soot?” I suddenly heard. I was about to respond asking who it was but then the owner of the voice walked into the room. “Good afternoon. I’m the physiotherapist”.
She was a woman with brown hair and white skin, a very average face and clothes, convincing me that I wasn’t in heaven. She was just a woman, a normal human like no other. That had to be the limbo I was so scared of ending up in.
“Good afternoon?”
I tried getting up, but the physiotherapist walked toward me and pushed me down back to the bed. “Hey! Better not do that. Let me check you first, ok? Are you feeling better?”
Better than what? Than when I died? “Uh… I don’t know”.
“Are you sure?”
I paused. “Yeah”.
“Ok”. She breathed in with a smile. “Can I check your legs?”
I looked at my legs, searching again for a sign of the fire that I had felt there . How were there no burns? Not even the memory of heat on my skin, the lack of hair on my body. No, it all looked too normal. A little broken here and there, but normal. I just looked like I had gotten hurt a little bit.
“I’m sorry…” I said, closing my eyes again and completely forgetting the woman’s question. “What day is today?”
She hesitated. “Are you okay? Do you want a nurse?”
“Please. What day?”
She finally replied. “November 16”.
I allowed for the physiotherapist to check my legs, and she also touched other parts of my body which hurt a little when inspected. My chin was one of them.
So it was still November 16. The day I burned L’manburg, the day everyone fought, and the day I died. So I had my confirmation. That could only be that. When the woman was just about to leave the room, I just had to ask her.
“Hey”.
“Hey! Need anything else?”
I didn’t even hesitate. Why would I? Why would anyone, in my situation, not think the way I did? No one wouldn’t, that is for sure. And so I asked her.
“Where am I?”
She looked shocked for a moment. Now I realize why, but at the time, I didn’t understand; I thought I was supposed to ask just that. I thought everyone did. Poor woman, she probably saw in my face that I really meant what I was asking, that even though I looked very healthy and safe, there was something wrong with the way my brain worked. She probably felt bad for me. Or better, felt bad for herself, for having to answer that. I don’t know if I would be able to.
We weren’t in limbo after all. It was just a normal fucking world. I was just misplaced. She took some seconds, because she was the normal one of the situation, and I started regretting my question. Limbo, I started mocking in my head. Why would that even be a thing? And the phrase came back to me. This is why I’m not religious.
“You… are in Mark Yellow Hospital, in the emergency room”.
“What? Where even is that?”
“In… Oliver Street…”
“Where is it, like, in simple words?”
She seemed to understand it right away. “England?”
And that’s when it all made sense. I wasn’t on the server anymore, for a reason I would never know. I was away, being someone else, someone with a different life but the same name. I still didn’t get it. And I already wanted to give up. I took my left hand to the top of my head to feel my hair, making sure it felt the same as always. It felt slightly dirty and wet, but that was definitely my hair. Same texture, same weight. My body also seemed to have the same proportions.
I looked at my left hand, and it looked just like mine. Less dirty this time. The nails were short like mine. The spot on the pointer finger was there.
So, really, I was someone who looked exactly like me. But that could not be me. But I surely wasn’t going to understand everything on the first day. Everything that I know now, everything that I learned, I picked up as time went on. On that day in the hospital, I only got confused, only saw things that made my head spin and my thoughts question themselves. It was after talking to about two nurses that the weirdest thing so far happened.
I saw someone I know. And not only that, but I saw him.
I saw Tommy.
He was there, he wasn’t far at all. And he was looking at me. No, not only that. He was there to see me, in my emergency room.
There were moments in the first week that were indescribable. That was one of those moments. Seeing those weirdly small blue eyes staring at me, water falling from them, and those details — he had awfully too many details — on his face curving themselves as he walked in.
I didn’t even react, I only stared in shock. Maybe I looked just like the physiotherapist looked then, but I felt way more confused than her, and worse for sure. Tommy didn’t even have to be too close for me to start talking. I just began.
“No,” I said. “No, please say it’s not true”.
Tommy stared, stopping next to me and waiting. He raised both his eyebrows.
“You didn’t… Please say you didn’t…”
“I didn’t what? Wilbur?”
Hearing his voice was what broke me. I let my head fall on my hands as I embarrassingly felt tears not fall, but water my eyes fully. Words instantly trapped themselves in my throat, and my breathing was soon compromised. And all because of hearing Tommy’s voice.
But it had been so long. And when I had last heard his voice, I was still feeling like a traitor, because that is what I was. I knew I was going to leave him, and I was going to destroy what he cared most about. I knew I would ruin a big part of Tommy’s life, yet I was going to do it anyway. And I never cared. I never cared enough about him to stop it. I always cared more about myself and about what I would feel, about what would be best for me. I had come to terms with the fact that I was the worst influence in that kid’s life, and that didn’t affect me at all.
I guess it affected me, right then, after death. Tommy’s touch on my back let me know that touch also affected me and so I twitched so he could let go. He didn’t realize though. I heard him call for the nurse and get desperate over what to do but I stopped him. I forced myself to stay calm.
“It’s okay,” I said, raising my head and wiping my eyes. “Really. Stop. Please don’t call anyone. I’ve already talked to too many strangers. Please”.
“Oh. I’m sorry”.
Tommy stopped, waiting for me to get myself together so we could have a normal conversation.
“Tommy. Please forgive me”.
“Wilbur… It’s okay. Really”.
“No. No, it’s not. And please say you’re just visiting me here or something. Please say you’re not part of this”.
He looked around, confused. “I mean… I am visiting you. I’m not part of the hospital”. He paused. “Are you okay?”
I furrowed my eyebrows. “Did the explosion hurt anyone, Tommy?”
“E-Explosion? No, Wilbur”.
“It didn’t? Oh, thank you. That’s good to know. And it might sound stupid coming from me, that question, since I’m the one that purposefully did it. But I mean it. I wasn’t meant to be this alert. I’m-”
“Wilbur, wait! They did warn me your memory was a little askew but…”
“No! It’s not. What do you mean?”
“What explosion do you remember? There weren’t any explosions”.
I sighed, not wanting to say it. Tommy was acting so calm, I was so afraid that he was going to turn against me at any second. “The… The one earlier today. Tommy… Please don’t be messing with me. Please…”
I took my head down again. Whatever my fate was, I decided that I deserved it. Tommy insulting me, leaving me behind, and never forgiving me for my mistakes, that is something that I deserved. Him being the one sent to tell me one last bad message before I go to hell is also something that I deserved. Whatever it was, I was ready.
But no. He was genuine in everything he was saying on that day. And there hadn’t been any explosions.
“Wilbur…” His eyes were getting watery again. “Don’t you remember what happened early today?”
It had to be a trap. It had to be. Looking around for an answer, looking down for burns again, and then looking inside for signs. No, I probably didn’t know what that kid would say happened early on that day. “What happened?” I asked. “Maybe if you tell me I’ll remember”.
Tommy looked distraught.
There was something bothering the young man.
“Earlier today. In the middle of the night. You were at the roof, and then you jumped off”.
And that’s where at least half of the story started making sense. There it was.