Chapter Text
The emptiness started to feel like home. It became more and more familiar and comforting as Avid remained there, trapped, stuck indefinitely.
Sometimes he felt like he could move throughout the void, floating from one place to another similar like how somebody would swim through water. Though it had no purpose it was fun. Currently, that’s what Avid was finding himself doing, trying his best to change his environment, even though it all looked the same. A bit of movement was healthy for the dead, right?
As he moved, there really wasn’t anything to orient himself with, the void was a mass of nothing with static like colours forever changing. You really couldn’t navigate this place, not easily at least, but Avid tried to, getting board of staying in one place he usually goes for “walks” to entertain himself when he doesn’t want to think much.
Avid kept swimming in the air, doing small twirls and flips, watching as his cape floated in the air majestically, giggling at the sight and imagining he was in a field of grass, frolicking happily. Eventually, he found a spot he deemed decent to float for the next period of time, his limbs also growing tired form the repetitive motions they were doing to get here. His arms and legs deserve as much of a break as he does!
The vampire sighs in content, stretching a little to get comfortable. He tries to find a position to rest in, laying his arms outwards and kicking his feet, closing his eyes as he tries to find some sleep. Besides resting, slowly flying around with the illusion of movement and contemplating every life choice you’ve made, there really isn’t much to do after death if this was what it was. Surprisingly he hadn’t met anyone so far. Avid doesn’t know whether that should be considered a good thing or not. On the contrary, he has discovered that he hears voices.
Compared to the way they were acting before, not speaking to him, only expressing their wants with instinctual desires and violent cravings, this version of them was more cooperative and coherent. He guesses it’s something that comes with being stuck in limbo for an undetermined amount of time.
Avid noticed they aren’t always there just sitting in his head, watching his every move or observing his thoughts, they just pop in and out from time to time to check in. Sometimes they stay around for longer and other times all they’ve got is a simple ’how are you’ and then they disappear again.
“You use this infinite time to think about me?” the voice scoffs, seemingly surprised by Avid’s train of thought.
“Well, you always leave and don’t come back for a while, this has been the longest you’ve been missing though.”
“I’ve been busy while you’ve spun around aimlessly in this place.” it answered, “Though this time I am bringing brilliant news with me.” said the voice, an audible grin worming its way into their sentence.
“Oh? So you have been working on something? Why didn’t you tell me before?” Avid says, faking sounding hurt. Before it could respond, an odd sensation starts making itself present, flipping his stomach upside down. “Wait I’m getting dizzy, I think I’m upside down-” he says, realizing he’s been hanging upside down by accident, causing him the slight nausea. Quickly readjusting himself, he focuses back onto the conversation.
“What was it you said? You’ve got news?”
“Yes, indeed. You see, as you’ve been lounging about for the past years, I’ve been busy trying to rebuild our physical form, our body.”
Caught off guard, Avid quickly blurted out, “Why didn’t you tell me this before? This is huge!”
“Well, it takes a lot of energy to rebuild a damaged vessel.” The voice hisses out. “Besides, I know best how you manifest when you’re antsy.”
Avid stays silent, what the voice said was true, he guesses it did have a point. Genuinely intrigued by what the voice was telling him, Avid piped down to listen better. Normally it would complain about stuff not wanting to work but it seems like it had figured everything out. “I’ve found a way for us to escape. However, this won’t come freely for you, my host.”
Everything went quiet for a moment. The information dawning on Avid like a brick had been thrown at him and hit him precisely in the middle of his face, dead on in between his eyes. He sat there, mind quiet and with a tense expression.
“So, what do you say? Do you want to live again?”
“Yes.”
“That’s what I wanted to hear.” The voice seemed to be pleased with itself, tone turning sinister and dark as it continued, “However, there’s a catch.”
“I’m still saying yes.”
“Even if my request would have dangerous consequences?”
“I want to breathe again and if you can bring me that then anything is possible.” Avid stated, finalizing the agreement with the voice in his head. He felt a shiver run through him from a mix of fear and excitement, he wasn’t sure it was from him or from the being in his mind. “One more thing, before we get to the living world again. I do have to warn you, time is quite funky, don’t expect to be in the same place where we died, got it? We might even end up before the whole Oakhurst thing even started, just in the vicinity of the town.”
“Wait how does that even make sense?”
Avid heard an exasperated sigh, “Time is difficult to work with in general, and when you’ve been stripped of any outside source for so long, I can’t guarantee time accuracy.” it said. Before Avid has any time to ask another question, he felt the world go dark and promptly passed out.
Still unconscious, his body laid on the dead, grey grass, changed from the voices efforts into restoring it. Nearby, some rubble could be heard getting moved, followed by footsteps and annoyed grumbles that started to slowly fade into the distance.