Trevor looked down and saw his body lying on the couch. At first, he was confused. Was he having an out of body experience? He saw that his body was not breathing. “NO! NO! I I can’t be dead. I haven’t even retired yet. I am supposed to go to Hawaii this winter. I just can’t be dead”, he said. He kept denying that he was dead. That was when he noticed that he had started falling up. “I must be in a dream or a coma. If I were dead, this wouldn’t be happening”, he thought. He was being pulled away from his body toward the ceiling, then through the ceiling of the living room, then through the roof of his house. He was falling upward faster and faster. He could soon see the entire neighborhood, then the entire suburb. As he rose higher and higher, the colors seemed to drain away and details faded. The more and more everything turned colorless, the more convinced he was that he was just in a coma. Soon he was surrounded by nothing but a colorless haze.

  Somehow, he could tell he was still moving, even though he no longer had a frame of reference in the unending haze. After a while (could have been minutes or hours, he didn’t know, as time had no reference here), he noticed there were vaguely globe looking things moving in the haze also. They were almost invisible, but not quite. He wondered what they were, then he realized that he was a vaguely globe looking thing. Could this be what souls looked like out of the body, he thought. After giving it some thought, Trevor decided that there were probably souls, and should be referred to as such. Most of the souls seemed to be heading in the same general direction even though there didn’t appear to be any destination, since you could only see the unending sameness. Trevor decided to call this place Limbo, since he had heard a description of Limbo that was pretty damned close to what he was experiencing.

  Floating along with the other souls, Trevor started to think about his life. He thought of the struggles throughout his life. How he managed to overcome all the setbacks, the hardships and even sabotage (sometimes from his so-called friends) in the early part of his life. He suddenly realized that he could recall everything perfectly. Even the smallest details. He could hear the sound of the rain hitting the tin roof as he relived the day his asshole dad shot his mom. He could smell the gunpower as the gun was fired. The struggle for the gun, calling the police, the ambulance. He experienced everything as if it was happening. But no matter howe he tried he couldn’t change a damn thing. It always happened the exact same way. He was just a passenger on his own memory train.

  Trevor wasn’t a glutton for punishment, and realized that if he could experience the “bad” times in perfect then he should be able to experience the “good” times also. He decided to relive the birth of his daughter and holding her in his arms for the first time. This led to other seemingly perfect moments in his life, taking his wedding vows, reading his acceptance letter to UC Berkely, his Marine retirement party. Okay, that last one was bittersweet, but still an enjoyable memory. He relived those memories and other perfectly, time and time again, as he drifted through Limbo. Trevor still denying he had died, was quite enjoying being in a coma.

  Days, months, years later, who knows, time really was meaningless here, Trevor was taking a break from reliving his life and started to see if there was anything other than just Limbo’s unending haze. He tried to get close to another “soul” but was pushed away every time he got close to one. Apparently, interaction between souls was prohibited here in Limbo.

  After that failed experiment, Trevor began to seriously investigate what he could and couldn’t do in Limbo. Revisiting your life was well and good, but that is all it was, revisiting. He needed more than that. Due to his exploration, he found that he could change the direction he was drifting. He discovered that he could stop, or at least it appeared that way, move “sideways”, “up”, “down”, and sprint “forward”, but that he couldn’t move “backwards”. All directions were relative, since the only thing he could orient against was the other souls, and his own internal since of direction. Yeah, being in a coma was weird. He wondered how long he was going to be in one.

  After another indeterminate amount of time (did time even exist in Limbo?), Trevor noticed there was a black spot ahead and towards the right. That was new, and new in Limbo was good, right? Trevor decided to investigate and moved toward the spot. As he drew closer, he could start to make out that it appeared to be two humanlike figures. He was surprised when he tried to move toward them and was successful. As he drew closer, he could tell they were fighting. Both had huge swords and were trying to hit each other. Close enough, Trevor could only describe the combatants as an Angel and a Demon. The battle was so smooth, it seemed like a dance, with each one reacting perfectly to the other. Their movements were flowing and graceful, perfectly coordinated, and if you made a mistake, utterly deadly. They seemed evenly matched. Each perfectly blocking the other’s attack, then counter attacking and being blocked. High, low, it didn’t matter. The fight was fast and furious, but neither could gain an advantage over the other. Not knowing what else to do, Trevor continued to move closer.

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  As he moved closer, he began to think if he had a human body, he could run and help the Angel. He imagined himself as the perfect human warrior, 6’ 4” tall, heavily muscled (but not overdone), dressed in scale and leather armor rushing into battle to help the Angel overcome the Demon. The next thing he knew, he was running with a human body, just as he had pictured. He instinctively knew his body was at the peak of human physical perfection. He moved faster than an Olympic sprinter. His balance was superb, no stumbling or erratic movement. He could feel the power of muscles. Everything was moving like a Swiss watch. All of a sudden, a HUD (he couldn’t think of another description) appeared, but somehow didn’t interfere with his vision. He ignored it, because he had reached the two combatants.

  Trevor realized that he didn’t have any weapons to attack the Demon with, so he launched himself against the demon, trying to tackle him. Epic failure. He just bounced off and fell flat on his ass. Even more embarrassing was that the Demon did not even seem to notice Trevor’s tackle attempt. The HUD flashed and displayed a window:

  [No damage from attack].

  [You have gained Combat skill level 1]

  [You have gained Unarmed combat skill level 1]

  Trevor scrambled back about 15 feet. So, it didn’t look like he could do anything with just his body. Trevor saw that both had swords, and thought if he had a sword, he could at least distract the Demon. The next thing he knew, he had a sword in his hand. He didn’t know how it got there, so he just stared at it for a moment. Another window appeared in his HUD:

  [Sword of Hidden Mythic Sharpness]

  [This sword is always sharp. It will cut through most material that is Mythic or less strength.]

  [Additional damage against demons, monsters, ethereal and summoned beings.]

  [Unending Bleed inflicted upon hit, and can stack up to 10 times.]

  [Other attributes become available at higher level.]

  Trevor grabbed the sword with both hands and launched himself against the demon, swinging his sword at the Demon’s leg. This was a little less of an epic failure, as his sword hit and actually scratched the Demon. No cut, no bleeding, just a light scratch. Unfortunately, at this point, the Demon casually backhanded Trevor and sent him flying 30 feet in the air. Trevor was in a lot of pain from the hit. When Trevor stopped (he didn’t really land, just slowly stopped flying backwards), he received more windows:

  [You have gained Weapon skill level 1]

  [You have gained Sword skill level 1]

  [You have been hit for 75 hit points, you are critically wounded]

  [You have gained the talent “Regeneration”, epic level]

  [You hit Demon for 1 hit point]

  [You have contracted blood disease @ 10 hit point per minute]

  A new image appeared in Trevor’s HUD. It was three lines, blue, red, and green. The blue line was very short, and Trevor intuitively understood that the lines represented health, stamina, and mana. Well, if he had mana, then maybe he could cast spells. Trevor stood up and tried to think of some super powerful spell that he could cast. Fireball, Wind blade and Mana Dart. Fireball may affect the Angel, and Trevor didn’t know how big Wind blade would be, so he decided on Mana Dart. Trevor imagined a large dart and throwing it at the Demon. To his surprise, he could see a dart made from mana flash toward the Demon. It impacted the Demon. His HUD flashed with new notification and at the same time, the Demon looked at Trevor. Trevor was immediately frozen with terror by the demon’s gaze and couldn’t move. Mode HUD flashes occurred, but Trevor was unable to look at them as he was enthralled by the demon’s gaze.

  When the Demon looked at Trevor, the Angel took the opportunity to strike at the Demon. The Demon was barely able to avoid the blow but put himself as a serious disadvantage. Trevor noticed that the scratch that he had earlier inflicted had now started bleeding, and it appears that the Demon did too. The Angel was pressing hard against the Demon and now had the advantage. As the Angel drew his sword back for another strike, the Demon did something that cause a flash temporarily blinding Trevor. By the time Trevor could see again, the Demon was nowhere to be found. It had fled into the haze.

  Trevor noticed his health bar getting smaller and smaller. This did not look good. But he was surprisingly calm. He thought that since he was already dead, losing the body would just put him back into the soul form (as he thought of it).

  The Angel looked for the Demon for a few seconds, but was unable to find him. The Angel noticed that Trevor was injured. The Angel cast a spell (at least that is what it looked like) on Trevor. Trevor received more updates on his HUD:

  [You have gained Magic]

  [You have learned the spell Mana Dart]

  [You are cured]

  [You are at full health]

  [You have learned the spell Cure All]

  [You have learned the spell Heaven’s Heal]

  [You have learned the spell Cleanse]

  [You have been given the Gift Linguistics]

  Apparently the Angel healed his wounds and cured the blood disease. The pain stopped immediately, and there were more flashed from his HUD. Trevor also noticed his three bars were all full again.

  “In the eons I have been battling Zemoculus, none have offered aid. You are the first, and you have my gratitude. I am Arigulius, the first warrior of the Heavens.”

  “Thank you for healing my wounds, I am Trevor recently of the planet Earth. This is a pretty exciting coma dream,” Trevor said the last part humorously, then added “Where am I?”

  “I am afraid to tell you this, but you are not in a coma. You died,” Arigulius replied.

  “Dead, I can’t be dead. I have too much to do. Too many people depend on me. Goddammit, I was going to Hawaii this winter.”

  “You are on the Heavens Path, where all souls go when their physical form has expired. This path leads to your afterlife, whether it is reincarnation, resurrection, eternal reward, damnation, or nonexistence.”

  “Goddammit,” Trevor thought.