Stopping certainly wasn’t an option.
“I’m a fuckin’ fool,” slipped from his lips every few minutes, between ragged breaths that became increasingly difficult as the soot-like substance he inhaled clung to his lungs.
Traveling for the better part of two hours now, he could just make out the distant noises of civilization.
Isaac made a mental checklist of the most important things once he reached town.
Boots.
Mask.
One of the two items he had previously discarded, assuming wearing it might brand him as some sort of gang member.
Stereotypes died hard.
Or did they persist through death?
Isaac was confusing himself now. His philosophical intrigue would have to wait until he could replenish what little brain power he had left.
His resources were also moving into a critically low state.
Anxiously, he watched as the video-game-stylized health and stamina bars decrease as he traveled. At first, he thought it was solely due to the damage to his feet.
This ground reminded him of obsidian—volcanic glass. He wasn’t quite sure what to make of that, considering it seemed recent. Or at least consistent enough to replace the old terrain with a fresh, lethal layer.
He was certain now that a fair portion of his health and stamina loss came from his own foolishness. Each breath of tainted air lined his throat with layers of near-invisible particles.
Slowly decreasing the amount of air he could retain with each attempt.
Slowly, his blood oxygen levels would drop to something dangerous—too dangerous—and his body wouldn’t be able to keep up.
Slowly, he would suffocate.
Slowly, he would die.
Again.
Isaac had to get out of his own head. If he didn’t, his thoughts would drag him down.
A lifelong battle with depression. Even if it wasn’t technically this lifetime’s battle—he could feel the same negative patterns emerging within his mind.
Something had to give.
Isaac increased his pace, shifting from a slow, steady walk into a poorly maintained jog.
Blood splattered the ground with each thundering footstep.
He traded puncture wounds from his careful gait for long, thin slices that tore into his feet as he ran.
But he couldn’t stop.
He wouldn’t.
In just a few minutes, he covered more distance than he had in perhaps the last hour alone.
But at a cost.
As the forest faded away and both sides of the river basin sprang to life, Isaac’s heart slowed drastically—one missed beat. Then another.
Not from exhaustion.
From bewilderment.
The town in front of him looked like it had been torn straight from a storybook. Old, hand-milled planks used for building. Masonry techniques that hadn’t been common since the early days of American history.
Isaac had just stepped into a town from the Wild West.
Without a shadow of a doubt, this was not the same timeline he had died in.
His eyes bounced rapidly between the buildings, desperately trying to absorb every possible detail.
Post office.
Stables.
General store.
Saloon.
Sheriff’s—
That was as far as he got before he noticed the people gathering around him.
Isaac knew he stuck out like a sore thumb. Every other human was covered from head to toe—the strange tri-layer mask combination worn by every single person, regardless of age or gender.
Most wore some sort of overcoat, reminding him of the classic Tombstone duster. Others wore more unique garments, which he assumed were tied to specific heritage or trade.
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Everything lacked color.
Blacks, browns, and grays created a sea of figures that could easily blur into one another—yet somehow remain distinct, unique, and deeply ominous.
No one spoke—the silence said enough.
Isaac could feel the adrenaline fading now that he’d stopped forcing movement from his failing body.
He coughed violently, his world rocking backward until both hands fell to his knees.
Gasping for air.
Finding none.
He coughed and retched with increasing desperation until the floodgates finally opened.
Isaac began to vomit a black, oily substance, the thickness of the fluid threatening to drown him before he could expel it.
Bubbles formed at the edge of his nose as he begged for air—swelling, then popping, splashing tarry grime back across his own face.
Nobody said anything.
Nobody did anything.
Everyone just watched, waiting to see what would happen.
The liquid slowly diluted the longer he expelled it, eventually shifting from dark, unwelcoming plaque to a thin, wine-red slurry.
The taste of iron confirmed the blood loss.
Words left his mouth yet he couldn’t understand any of the consonants. They didn’t seem to form words, his ability to think coherently slipping away from him, replaced by the jumbled message he was trying to convey.
Too much blood loss.
Not enough oxygen.
A voiced pierced through the silence.
Calm.
Steady.
Yet demanding.
“Don’t just stand their gauking at the poor man. Can’t you see he’s survived. It’s a sign.”
Another voice responded.
“Fetch water.”
Confusion washed over his mind as the world faded away from him. Reality replaced with a deafening silence and blackness that snuffed out his vision.
His body crumbled into a mixture of mud, ash and glass.
He wasn’t sure how much time had passed or where he had been moved to.
His immediate attention went to the bandages wrapped around his feet, wound high past his ankles and hugging his calves tightly.
The rest of his clothes had been entirely removed. He lay wrapped in some sort of sheepskin material—at least, that was his best guess based on the coarse, wool-like texture pressed against his skin.
The room was small, not much larger than the tiniest shack he had investigated back at the cemetery. This space, however, was far cleaner and clearly maintained as living quarters rather than shelter.
A single window sat on the wall farthest from the bed. Makeshift curtains hung just low enough to prevent him from seeing outside.
The room was lit entirely by natural light. Isaac scanned the walls for any sign of electrical outlets or modern conveniences, but found none.
That only strengthened his theory—wherever his subconscious now resided, it certainly wasn’t where it had been when the bullet took his life.
Strangely enough, he couldn’t help but smile.
Maybe this new world would suit him better than the endless routine of chasing a version of perfection he had always loathed back home.
Maybe the irony—that his life had been taken by a gun, only for him to awaken in a society that likely revered them—was lost on him.
Maybe he should have been worried.
All he felt was excitement.
A second chance to make something of himself.
In a world that rewarded determination and grit.
A chance to fully reinvent who he was.
Looking around the small room, Isaac was unable to locate the clothes he had arrived in. This made making any type of inconspicuous exit extremely difficult, if not bordering on impossible.
He stretched, placing both hands onto the small cot that held him up. The bed was the definition of the basics, but after sleeping in a coffin for who knows how long, he certainly wasn’t complaining. His body rejoiced in the time away from the elements. Time to sit, reflect, and recover.
Isaac drifted in and out of consciousness several more times as he slowly tried to piece together his new reality.
This time, upon waking up, he decided to hoist himself into the seated position.
Surges of pain overtook his body one at a time as his muscles tightened and released. His ribs felt cracked—probably not broken, he thought to himself.
Had his coughing and projectile vomiting cracked his own ribs?
What type of force would that require?
The world spun slightly as he leveled himself upright. The cot below him creaked loudly against the old wooden floor. Rusted legs from the bed whistled and creaked with each rocking movement.
He found himself feeling stable at about the same time the door slowly swung open. It seemed like everything here was rather creaky. He filed away this observation for later.
To his surprise, the little person poked her head into the shack. Her large circular eyes immediately took Isaac off guard. Bright forest green. Her face was naturally round, her skin as pale as could be, complemented by a jet-black pixie-style haircut. Isaac knew her features had been amplified due to the fact that no one went anywhere without their tri-layer mask. This acted as a dust guard, sun protection, and so much more.
She hesitated for only a moment longer before sliding the door the rest of the way open and taking a step inside.
Her clothes were much different than the garments he’d seen everyone in the town square wearing upon his arrival.
This was a delicate, flowing sundress. Baby-blue sky flowed down her gown, sprinkling in patches of yellow sunflowers.
No more neutrality. Blacks, browns, grays.
This girl was vibrant and full of life, an immediate contrast to the town outside.
“Good you is awake.” She spoke in a sing-song pattern, her voice light and elevated in pitch, reminding him of her youth.
The words that came from Isaac startled him. Much like he had never consciously thought to take a breath before—filling his lungs with oxygen having always been second nature—so was the response.
“Ain’t able to stay dead, it seems.”
The voice that spoke was a stranger to him.
The deep, gravelly tone sat octaves below what he remembered sounding like before. This voice sounded fifteen years older than Isaac, despite his body feeling around the same age. He had no real way of knowing, but he could tell that life here was harsh. Those who survived earned it, and those who couldn’t… well, they probably ended up buried like he had.
Which brought the same reoccurring question back into his mind.
What type of trauma wiped out the entire Grayson family?
The girl didn’t hesitate. She stepped fully into the room after he spoke, approaching his bed with a mixture of grace and determination. Without him asking, she immediately began inspecting the bandages wrapped around his feet and calves.
Blood had begun to leak through between his little snooze sessions.
“Need to change this, I will!” she said, carrying a cheerful demeanor despite the gruesomeness of the task.
“Ya some kinda nurse, are ya?” Isaac spoke. His words seemed to cut themselves off. When he said you, it came out as ya.
Interesting, he thought. Some sort of underlying motor control function was kicking in and bypassing my own ability to communicate.
“Ain’t no doctors here, Mr. Grayson.”
“Me mum’s the closest Ashfall has. I just learnt from her.”
Isaac didn’t speak this time. He only nodded his head slowly in recognition.
She had called him Mr. Grayson.
That was the same name he had seen on the tombstone.
He racked his brain, trying to remember the first name. It started with a J—but no matter how hard he tried to recall it, the memory evaded him.
Before he had a chance to ask the young girl her name, she turned and left the room.
“Back in a moment,” her rhythmic voice sang as she closed the door behind her.
The door clicked behind her as she pulled it tightly shut. Isaac listened for any indication that she was locking him into the room, but none came.
The footsteps became more distant as she walked away from the door.
Isaac waited.
Listened.
Silence.
For a moment, he considered if he should take his chances and leave now, before she came back—possibly with an adult that might be more of a problem for him.
Isaac found he couldn’t move.
He sat against the roughly hand-planed walls, half covered in his blanket, and replayed the words in his mind again and again.
“Mr. Grayson.”