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Where do I go after I die?
Askeladd had never been one to ask himself that question. It seemed redundant, especially in the heat of battle when ‘after I die’ wasn’t a future one should consider for even a second if one didn’t want it to become reality. And in most other situations, if not all, it was simply too dark of a question to ask.
Of course the topic would come up every now and then and the men would start swooning about the halls of Valhalla, but no one ever asked themselves that question seriously. Genuinely. Asking yourself, or anyone for that matter, a genuine question usually led to genuine answers and those could be horrifying. Because if you genuinely asked Where do I go after I die?, a question very closely related to that would be Will I go to Valhalla? and no one wanted an actual serious answer to that. Yes, of course you’ll go to Valhalla if you die in battle, but you could die at any moment in any dishonorable way and you’ll never even know what hit you until they shut the door in your face. Great talk, have another drink. No way.
That answer, while terrifying to most people he had sailed with over the years, meant nothing to Askeladd. Never had. Honor was a great buzzword to die from but a foolish one to live by. And without honor, one would never go to Valhalla. Or so they always said. And Askeladd had listened but never agreed, nor had he disagreed. He wasn’t stupid, why would he run his mouth off over a subject he knew nothing about?
Where do I go after I die?
That was the thing, wasn’t it, no one knew. They believed, which was very different and far more dangerous. Believing that dying with honor was the greatest achievement in the world, that was a nice thing to do until you ran into someone who favored dishonorable survival. And Askeladd had always been that man to favor dishonorable survival, to favor survival over anything else, because it really didn’t matter how you did it as long as you stayed alive. And stay alive, escape, or as some might even say, cheat death he had done time and time again, and again, and again.
Until today.
The darkness around him was… it wasn’t even darkness anymore, it was just blackness. Blackness and something else, pictures of things Askeladd couldn’t tell whether they were memories or visions. Any time he took a closer look, he ended up seeing nothing, but then he looked down and could see himself clearly, as if he was a lantern in the dark, yet no light broke through the blackness. Any time he took a breath, his lungs remained empty and yet he wasn’t suffocating. His body was numb, but looking down he saw the wounds he had acquired in his life and they were bleeding, drenching his clothes in blood for a moment before they were gone again in the blink of an eye.
It was a strange mix of too little and too much, of nothing at all and everything at once and he had yet to wrap his head around it, but it sure as shit wasn’t Valhalla. Askeladd didn’t know whether he wanted to laugh or cry and when he opened his mouth to let out something in between, the sound was swallowed by the darkness so quickly he doubted for a moment that it had ever been there.
Where do I go after I die?
He had never been afraid of not going to Valhalla, that much was true. But to say that there were no possible answers to that question that would scare him would be a lie. There was one answer that frightened him more than anything else and he had never dared to say it out loud during his lifetime, but now, here, it didn’t matter anymore and when he uttered it into the abyss, the abyss sucked the words right up and said nothing back.
What if I don’t go anywhere?
He took pride in not getting too attached to people, but if he was being completely honest with himself, he had thought about Bjorn a lot. During his attempt at recovery, after the duel and even when he was bleeding out on the floor while Thorfinn screamed at him. Such an unpleasant brat, all around, not like Bjorn. Bjorn had always been very different from any other northman Askeladd had ever met. Not a genius by any means, not a moron either though. Empathetic, sensible, and way more in control than most people realized. In control of himself and his actions, of everything surrounding him. Sometimes Askeladd had thought that Bjorn even had a certain grasp on him, but it had never gotten to the point where he would’ve been ready to admit that Bjorn had seen through him. Because he just never had. And Askeladd had felt sorry about that many times - if there was one person who deserved to see through him just a little bit, it would have been Bjorn.
A small part of him had always hoped that there would be time for this in another life. Somewhere there wouldn’t be any wars to fight and secrets to keep and Askeladd couldn’t have cared less about what that other life would’ve looked like, but he would’ve followed Bjorn to Valhalla. He would’ve followed Bjorn anywhere, but apparently death didn’t care about that. Because Askeladd was nowhere and Bjorn was somewhere else where they wouldn’t open the gates for his kind. Bjorn had gone to Valhalla. Askeladd had just gone away.
“Son of a bitch went on without me,” he muttered to himself and it sounded like the voice of a stranger.
What if I don’t go anywhere?
What then? What now? He had sacrificed himself for the reign of a king he wouldn’t live to follow and the safety of a country that had never loved him back enough to justify the things he had done to protect it. And it had all been for nothing, or nothingness at least, because apparently he wouldn’t get anything else in return for his efforts. Maybe this was some kind of twisted reward; feeling nothing in exchange for all those years of pointless suffering. Askeladd banned that thought to the deepest depths of his brain before it could take roots. What, was he supposed to be grateful to be left alone in absolute silence? Eternal hellfire would be preferable to this.
So very perfidious. Outside noises had never bothered Askeladd as much as the noise inside his own head and to take away that layer of protection, to leave him in absolute silence with nothing to drown out his own thoughts, that was cruel. Nothing but cruel. Askeladd had always known that the gods were coldhearted and he had never expected them to give him peace. That was not a problem, he didn’t need peace. But that they’d push him out of all their realms, that they’d make him disappear… he almost had to salute that they had caught him off guard like that, but then again, who was he to ever arrogate the ability to outsmart the gods.
What if I don’t go anywhere?
Taking the first step was always the hardest to take, even more so when you had no feeling in your body. But as soon as he had done it, an ever so slight ease overcame him and he took a deep breath of nothing as he took another step, and then the next one, and the next one. If he was afraid to get stuck, maybe he should start moving.
Where do I go after I die?
Askeladd highly doubted that he would ever reach an edge of the abyss, but you never knew. And if he couldn’t go anywhere, maybe wandering would be enough for now. Roaming the afterlife, seeing if there was an actual life for him to find. He had always been nothing if not an explorer.
I don’t know.