Life After Death: Reincarnation

~Aeris~

"You're awake." She looked at me with a faint sign of worry. "Are you ok?"

"Yeah." I wanted to sit but it felt like I was stabbed in the gut. Oh, wait. I was stabbed. "What happened?"

"I entered the room. You were on the floor, almost unconscious and in great pain." she fiddled with the corners of my bed sheets with her hands. "You flat-lined for a minute. We though you were dead."

"What happened?" Michael walked from behind. He wasn't in his labcoat anymore nor in formal clothing. He was wearing a simple grey long, sleeve t-shirt and black, skinny jeans.

I tried to sit up again, this time with the assistance of Death. As I sat, I told them about how the room faded and shifted into a battlefield, Lucia and the three other nameless figures, and how shift slowly slided her blade into my stomach. I left out the part about the two girls and me laying on the ground, bleeding to death. It seemed rather irrelevant.

"Lucia." He put his hand to his chin, thinking, analyzing the situation.

"Her seal is weakening," Someone opened the door and came in slowly. "As I suspected. The other patients, they experienced something similar."

He looked young, about my age. He wore a purple jacket over a black polo with chequered sleeves. He also had black pants with black sneakers.

He had a grim expression on. He stood straight, his hands in the pockets of his jacket, staring at me with those green, striking eyes, as if he was looking through my soul.

He walked closer, his facial features becoming clearer as he moved. His nose was pointy and crooked, yet complimented his facial aspects. His thin lips grinned, showing his perfectly white teeth. His hair was shaggy, covering his ears.

He sat beside me, touching where Lucia stabbed me.

"She's getting stronger, using dreams and illusions to wreak havoc."

"Where are my manners?" Michael interrupted, "Aeris, this is Loki-"

"Norse god of mischief and illusions?" I'm a big fan of mythology. Sorry for geeking out.

Loki looked at me and laughed a little. "No. But close." He extended his arm for a hand shake. "I am the embodiment of deathly illusions."

He looked at me. "What did she say?"

"She said 'give my regards to the council and the pillars.'" I told him, as if hypnotized by his glaze.

Momentarily, he paused and turned his head towards Michael who stared back at Loki "It's time."

The young man straightened his shoulder, "It has be quite sometime since we all had an official party."

"We?" I asked, looking for a quiet abswer from Death who was also dumbfounded at this point.

"The Council of Grimm Reapers and the Pillars of Life," Michael looked at me, giving me a comforting smile.

After a few hours, we exited the hospital and stood at the drive way of Clinton's General hospital.

I stood, clutching my stomach, assited by Death. Standing by our side were Loki and Michael.

"Your family seems to have strong ties to the sprit world." Death held me a little tighter.

"Yeah, especially Dianna." I walked clumsily

"You're not yet dead. We can still get you back. Don't worry." She stared at me with those chinky eyes.

"I hope so." I stared into the seamingly normal road. And as I did, I noticed something approaching from afar.

It seemed like a small dot from here but moved closer and closer by the second.

It was a frigate on dryland. Except it wasn't on dryland. The road it was on seemed to liquify and dissolve as it moved on it.

It moved fast that it stopped in front us after a minute.

The boat itself was made of wood, mahogany I think, decorated in bones and carvings. By the bow was an undead mermaid figurehead which had eyes that seemed to follow me as I moved. The entire starboard was decorated with random bones of various sizes, lined with cannon made of silver. I don't know of my eyeswere playing tricks on me but some of the bones seemed to move.

"All aboard!" A skeleton in a naval uniform approached the edge of the starboard and let down a plank for us to walk up to.

What I saw looked like something straightout of pirates of the Caribbean.

On the deck were no less than fifteen crew members, all of them were made of bones. No kidding, it's a literal skeleton crew. They all wore some kind of naval uniform, except it was torn and mangled in various ways. Some of them was missing something;  one of them who walked past me was missing an arm.

They were busy shuffling around the ship; manning oars, sweeping the deck, surveying the street, going up the mainmast to get to the main top. Just generally a lot of piratey stuff.

One of the crewmen approached us. He (she?) was dressed the same uniform as everyone, except his (her?) was a bit less torn apart; a set of blue navy uniform, on the side of his (her?) sleeves were three arrows vertically stacked on top of each other.

It. Let's just call him/her that until we know what IT is. Look, it's kinda hard to determine the gender of someone without, you know, FLESH OR SKIN.

It had a bandana, tying its shoulder-length, auburn hair back. It also had an eyepatch covering its left eye (Yes, they had eyes. Well, some of them have a complete set of eyes, most of them as either missing one or just completely eyeless). Its eyes had a certain red glow to it. And I don't mean that it's just red in color, it literally glowed bright red. That, aside from it having actual hair, made her standout fron everyone.

"Welcome aboard, Lads." Ok, ok. It's a she. Her voice was soft yet firm, very human like despite not having lungs or a Larynx. "My name is Maya, lieutenant to the captain of this fine vessel. How may we be of service?"

"We need to speak to Charon" Michael said with a straight face.

"About what?" She tilted on to the right, curious to see what the answer is.

"It's hard to explain." Loki's head bobbed left and right as if he was looking for someone.

"It's been a long time, Loki." coming down from the helm was a woman who looked differently from everyone else. She wore robes that had small cuts, tears and holes all over. Through the holes, you could see her brown, b.a.r.e skin and u.n.d.e.r.g.a.r.m.e.n.ts. Not that I meant to look at them! Er. No.

"When was the last time?" Loki gave her a sly smile.

"Almost a thousand years ago back in Greece." She walked closer to us, her thick, lush hair blowing in the wind, smiling maliciously towards Loki with her dark, thick lips. Her eyes was covered in bandages, going around the back of her head, yet she walked unassisted and with grace.

I looked at Death, hoping that maybe she might have an idea of what's happening. The look on her face said it all; she is utterly clueless.

She stopped in front of us and looked at Death and I. "Death. It's nice to finally meet you." She stared at me, "Are we bringing this soul to the floating ilse?"

"No. He's with us." Michael spoke.

"Then why have you summoned us?" obviously a bit irritated. She glared at the angel.

Loki put his hand on her right shoulder. "We need your help, Charon."

"About going to where the sun and moon meets, where life is in unison with death." Loki looked her right in the eye. His green eyes, glowing green. "We need to get to Atlantis."