Basic Oblivion

Chapter 3

Justin O'Neal opened his eyes and stood up. He looked at the ground of black dirt that he had been sleeping on and dusted off the dirt on his clothes. It was then that he realized that he had no idea where he was.

"Where am I?" he wondered out loud. "Last I checked I should be dead."

He was startled when he heard a voice from behind him actually respond. "You are," the voice said.

Justin quickly spun around and reached for his weapons. "What the-?!" he said when he found out that his weapons were gone. He then glared at the figure in front of him. "Who are you and what did you do with my stuff?"

The figure stepped into view. He was a tall man wearing a black suit and fedora, a purple scarf was wrapped around his face so that the only part of his face that was visible was his glowing yellow eyes. "Welcome to the Underworld. My name is Charon," he introduced himself. "As for your weapons, they vanished when you entered into the realm just like everyone else's."

Justin took a good look at his hands and found that there was a soft white aura around him and that he could just barely see through them. "Looks like that part of your story checks out," he said, closing his hand in a fist and making sure he kept his distance from Charon. "But how do I know that I can actually trust you?"

"Well for starters, I couldn't kill you even if I wanted to," Charon pointed out. "The second reason is because I am only here on request. Otherwise I would leave you to be judged as all new arrivals are."

"Request?" Justin asked.

"Yes, my master has asked me to retrieve you so that he may speak with you," Charon said.

Justin was about to ask about Charon's "master" when a sudden realization came over him. "Wait, if I'm dead, what happened to my Light Magic?" he asked.

"Actually, you still have it," said a familiar voice. Justin turned to see the entity that had been residing inside of him when he was alive, but unlike Justin, he looked more like a hologram than a ghost. "Don't ask me how to explain it. This is completely new territory for me. As far as I knew, I was supposed to disappear when you died."

Justin was surprised at how similar to him Angel looked. "It seems you also get your own body in this realm as well. More or less," he said. "Although why do you look like me?"

Angel just shrugged. "I guess that since we share a body, my physical appearance has been altered so that it resembles my host: you," he said.

"Well still, I'm kind of glad that you're still here, Angel," Justin said.

The entity nodded and turned his attention to Charon, studying him. "He's not lying," Angel told Justin. "I can sense it from him. He doesn't seem to be very hostile."

Justin looked at Charon, but didn't let his guard down. "Very well, lead the way," he said. When Charon turned around, he lowered his voice and leaned towards Angel so that he couldn't be heard. "Make sure you keep an eye on him. Better safe than sorry."

Angel nodded before disappearing and Justin hesitantly followed behind Charon as he led the way through a crowd of trees with black leaves and towards a gray cobblestone path. Once there, Charon turned and walked up the path with Justin not far behind.

As they walked, Justin couldn't help but marvel at the way the Underworld looked. It was surprisingly different than he had expected it to be. There wasn't fire all over the place and it felt more like he was inside a gigantic cave with the huge rocky ceiling high above them. He was so distracted by his surroundings that he almost didn't notice that Charon had stopped moving, coming to a stop just before he could run into him.