Warning: This work is rated T for a reason; there is Violence, Blood, Drama, and the mention of serious topics like suicide and the afterlife that merit this rating. This work of Fanfiction will never have any material that would send it over the edge to an M rating like Lemons or highly descriptive scenes of violence.

Hello, and welcome to my first Fanfic, I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I do writing it. I decided to start this story first as a way to practice and experiment with my writing, and second, because as much as I love the fantastic world Tite Kubo created in Bleach, I still find myself craving more of it.

Especially more about Quincy.

I will put this as my first and final warning about the matter.

This is a Quincy centric retelling of the story. I won't spoil you with the details, but do expect Quincy to take the forefront here.

Oh, and I don't own Bleach!

Enjoy!

Season 1: Welcome Home

Episode 1: A Deal With The Devil's Son

United States – California – St. Martin Hospital

When I was born, the doctors told my parents I would not survive the week; I have been breathing for seventeen more years since that fateful day.

And they were right.

My world was composed of fake green and smiles, four walls that were once white and now are filled with painted palm trees surrounded me, A single window cast the light of the sun upon them to my left, and lastly my bed which was several sizes larger than I could ever be. If I could have moved, I could have swum in it.

Elephants, lions, zebras, and even a dragon smiled at me from their homes in the plastic tiles of the rooftop where my father had painted them with his unskilled yet caring hands long ago.

In a stand between the bed and the window, nudged in between the machines with their cables connected throughout my body, two picture frames stood in penitence. One was empty, and the other had a photo with a cropped corner of me when I was a newborn and still had a little bush of brown hair crowning my head.

Keeping myself upright in the bed took effort and made breathing so much harder, even with the long tube that went inside my mouth from the interior of the breathing mask, my lungs ached, and a rebellious cough forced my teeth to bite into the plastic.

I laid down into the softness of the pillows, and my eyes left to wander around once more.

There was a lonely wooden chair close to the entrance and the bathroom's door; she was my most trusted companion and friend; she knew of all my worries and never judged me for my eternal silence. A gray suitcase slept on top of her, I had never opened it myself, but I knew that inside it were various changes of clothes that my parents used when they still came to visit and stayed with me through the scary nights.

The last time anyone touched that suitcase was seven years ago.

My only visitors these days are the nurses that come to change the IV bags once in the morning, and once before it goes dark. They never spoke, but I didn't judge them for it.

Between both doors, there was a small mirror hanged on the wall in such a way that made it look like it was hanging from one leaf of the painted palm tree behind it. It was in a very awkward position, and I could only see myself in it if I moved to a specific point of my bed.

I used to do it a lot; it tired my limbs, but I enjoyed looking at my reflection, and if I angled my head right, the light of the lamps would hit my clean-shaven skull and ricochet into the mirror-like some doomsday laser of death and damnation from a comic book. With little to do in here, I had to get creative sometimes to escape the looming eyes of that creature called boredom.

The door's hinges whined like a kicked dog, and a middle-aged nurse with a motherly smile on her face and a freshly squeezed IV bag in a tray walked in, her heels created a funny rhythm together with the semi-constant peeping of the machines.

I wished I could giggle.

She made a whole tour around my bed, peering at the screens, and nodding silently to herself; her eyes never went anywhere close to me. She disconnected the empty bag and replaced it with the new one before she finally acknowledged my presence as she pulled my arm out from the covers of the bedsheets, I felt her fingers prodding on the needle and the bandages around it, but I didn't watch.

She left without saying a word, the hinges of the door, giving their goodbyes to her for me.

Time is a strange thing, in theory, it always moves at the same speed, but although the sun always seems to go away so slowly every other day. Today was different; the incandescent light outside the window ran away from the sky as if it knew precisely the thoughts that lingered in my mind and wanted nothing to do with them.

The green digits in the breathing machine kept on counting the minutes and hours; I keep looking at it even after the sun disappeared from the horizon. When the clock hit midnight, I took a long gulp of air and dragged my body, wriggling like a worm towards the window until my shoulder reached the end of the bed and hanged from the side.

I was too lazy to move my head to look; I blindly waved my arm around to grab onto the IV stand, my knuckles connected with the cold metal, and the stupid thing went away from my reach, the racket of its wheels laughing at me as it ran.

I wanted to groan but is not like I could. I turned my head around and zeroed in the pole, I took it and wheeled the damned rod closer, and pressed it against the bed so that I could push myself upwards with its help.

My arms trembled like leaves around the IV stand, the pole moved a little, and I felt a small spike of fear every time I heard the little wheels whimper under my weight; Thankfully the thing held on and after twenty long seconds I was sitting in the bed with my legs dangling in the air.

Like someone testing the waters of a swimming pool before cannonballing in it, I poked the floor with my big toe; it was cold like ice, that was not a surprise. I think I took more time poking the ground a dozen times more than the actual time it took me to slid out of bed and steady myself.

I probably looked like a mixture of a witch and the hunchback of Notre dame; I held onto the IV stand for dear life for almost a whole minute of trembling and spikes of pain as my bones acclimated themselves with gravity.

I made a tentative step toward the breathing machine, but the IV stand wheels didn't get the memo that I didn't plan on continuing; the stupid thing slid forward, and I had to play catch up if I didn't want my forehead to have a very romantic meeting with the machine's screen.

The traitorous wheeled pole ended up doing that for me, it crashed into the machine, and my shoulder smashed against it.

Not five minutes into my plan and things had already been set on fire, gone downhill from a cliff and died against the hard rocks underneath.

Great, just great.

I abandoned the stupid pole temporarily as I leaned against the machine, and I put all my attention into the touchscreen.

For all the ignoring and silent treatment I always got from the nurses, they never really did anything to hide what they were doing from me, I don't think they ever considered that I could be paying attention to their actions at all. Most of them probably thought me already a vegetable even though I could wiggle a little.

Years with nothing better to do had helped me accumulate a vast library of knowledge in how to operate the machine; ironically I didn't actually know what the actual technical name of this thing was, I only called it the breathing machine because it was the one with its long tube currently making its home down my throat.

I went through the touchscreen's menu and reached the button to turn it off, but then I hesitated. Midnight was when the nurse's shift happened, and nobody would be paying attention to the monitors for at least fifteen minutes. Still, I wasted time here as I fought a surge of second thoughts because turning it off would be the first gate before the point of no return.

The button glowed green, and I felt as if it was taunting me; with one last glare, I stamped my finger on it, and with one peep, the screen turned black; I felt the tube in my mouth go flat as the stream of air stopped coming.

I propped my stomach into the machine so I could free my hands to hold the tube; I gave an experimental tug and felt the thing slither inside me. Thank god I had lost any gagging reflex long ago. I pulled harder, and the plastic snake slowly emerged with just a couple of hits and bumps along the way that made my eyes tear up a little.

This was it, The point of no return. I dragged what was left of the tube out, and it broke the seal holding it to the breathing mask. I threw it away and breathed my first unsupported lungful of air in years.

It hurt so much. The air flowed inside me with a cold burn that spread inside my veins and fought for dominance against the old aches that were already there.

I love it.

I snorted in delight, the pain flared again, but I didn't care about it. It wasn't like it was going to bother me for much, and I wanted to enjoy this experience for as long as it lasted.

I was giddy as I made my way to the door, one tiny step at the time with the IV stand still carrying more of me than my own two feet could handle. Opening the door was a bit of a challenge; I had to try and pull it back while keeping myself up at the same time as the stupid thing tried to close itself. I hoped whoever decided that putting a coil into doors so they would close by themselves was having an excellent burning coal's treatment in hell.

There was not a soul present in the corridor outside, I had initially planned to use the stairs at the end of it which led directly to my destination, but I wasn't sure I was going to be able to make it down the steps with the IV stand. Going to the elevators would be the safe choice, but that also meant passing through the nurses' station.

I gulped, every step closer I made felt like it was louder and louder. By the point, I reached the last room before the station I was holding my breath and would have been walking in the tip of my toes if I could have managed it.

The nurses' station was like a small office with only a countertop and a little waist-height door separating it from the corridor; the two elevators were right beside it on the other side from where I was standing. I poked my head over the wall, and after a short inspection, I smiled.

There was nobody there yet.

I didn't waste any more time; I went to the elevators as fast as I could shuffle my tired limbs.

I reached the panel and went to touch the down button; the stupid IV stand decided it was a beautiful moment to wheel away, and I ended up pressing both buttons as I did my best not to fall to the floor.

"Shit." my eyes went agape as the word left my mouth, my voice sounded more like a burp than anything, but it amazed me. I felt both wonder and utter annoyance because there I was, finding out I still could talk after so many years without having done it, and the first thing that comes out of my mouth is 'shit?'

Way to go me, way to go.

I got into the elevator with no much trouble, and thankfully it was going down. The trip down the three floors came with an enjoyable add-on of a flute solo and my failure to stop saying random words just for the sake of hearing my voice.

When the doors opened, I hid on the side and scouted the hallway before I got out. The echo of voices in the lobby made me nervous, but luckily the elevators didn't directly connect to it, there was a short corridor in between them, and I didn't need to go that way either.

My goal was in the other direction, through the walkway that went into the now-closed cafeteria and the gift shop – why is there a gift shop in a hospital anyway? – and into the visitors' parking lot.

I waved my hands at the automatic doors and giggled a little as they opened with the power of the force. That was one thing I could scratch off my to-do list.

I took one step out, while the air conditioning shot a stream of cold air against my back.

I took another, and the stand rattled as it went through the door's limits.

A third step, and I hesitated.

If I took another one, I would leave the roof. There would be nothing between my head and the sky.

I remember long ago when I was still a little girl, and my mom used to visit me. She once told me a story about her purple balloon, and how the moment she had let go of it outside, her balloon had been lost to the sky.

I knew it was silly to think about it now; it is not like I would magically start to float, but… but.

I closed my eyes, took a long breath, and gave my fourth step.

And…

And…

I didn't drift upwards.

I opened my eyes but didn't look up, the yellow-colored stone road of the sidewalk clashed with the black asphalt beside it, I would have gone with a different design honestly, it made me think of the Wizard of Oz, like the knockoff to the Chinese knockoff of the Wizard of Oz kind of thing. And I mean this is a sort of high-end hospital and…

I groaned and looked up.

I was left speechless.

The sky was beautiful; it didn't matter that it wasn't like in the movies or Tv, or that I had seen it many times before from my window. It was amazing.

There was not a single star, only half of the moon was brightening the world, and dark rainy-looking clouds hid a quarter of it.

It was just so vast.

I couldn't stop looking at it; my feet kept going forward, and I shuffled together with my IV stand like a drunkard without blinking once.

I ignored the pain, I forgot about the air that wasn't reaching my lungs any longer; I didn't care about the black spots in my vision or the cold in my skin. I was happy right there.

The sky was beautiful.

Seventeen years, I had existed inside the hospital, hooked up to more machines than I cared to remember. My time had been spent in that room with only the tv, books, and manga to give me an idea of the world outside.

And here I finally was, I had existed for seventeen years, and finally. Finally, at the end of the road, as my legs gave away underneath me and I fell harshly into the golden cobblestones, with the sound of my skull cracking against them as the final note of my song.

Finally.

I had lived.

Unknown – Uknown – Uknown

The feeling of vertigo snapped my eyes open.

I was falling fast, and I couldn't see much before I collided into the dark waters, the force of the impact made me rebound a little, and my head resurfaced for just enough time for me to gulp air before I was swallowed back again.

I trashed like a wild animal with my fear and confusion mixed like a weird, surreal cocktail of drugs and alcohol. Rather than hold onto the bit of air that I had in my mouth, I tried to scream only for said air to escape in mocking bubbles.

I didn't know where I was, what was going on or happening. The waters around me were calm like the ones of an undisturbed pond, yet I felt myself plunging deeper into them as if I was weighted by chains connected to buckets of solid cement.

I fought against the pull to no avail. Waving my arms madly and flapping my legs until my muscles gave up on me and I could move no longer.

As I stopped flailing, it didn't take me long to notice something important; I was not drowning. The air had run from my lips, yet I breathed hard and felt my lungs fill, not with water, but neither with air exactly. I just knew I wasn't dying, and that turned off my flight instinct.

I was still slowly drifting down, but the waters around me were not perturbed with my passing, it was almost as if I wasn't there, like a ghost. But I couldn't confirm it without something substantial to test it.

I still had my white hospital gown on, and I pinched it between my fingers, but I couldn't use it as a proof that I wasn't a ghost, most ghost stories I have read always had the spirit wearing clothes that were just as ghostly as they were.

There was nothing else in the dark waters, they were empty even though I could see so much of it, there weren't any lights either, but my sight was untroubled by it.

I still recalled very clearly collapsing in the sidewalk of the parking lot, so it didn't take more than just putting two and two together for me to understand that this was perhaps what being dead was all about.

Maybe this was heaven? Probably not, I wasn't much of a Christian believer, unlike my parents, but I knew enough to remember that suicide was a sin, and although I had not literally taken my own life… well, it wasn't that far from the truth.

This place had to be no other than hell. It was kind of anticlimactic, I was expecting a burning world with just a hint of world-ending fire falling from the sky, with scorching swimming pools of lava, and a whole fraternity party of demons and imps trying to poke people with their oversides forks to seal the deal.

Instead, I got…this?

An existence floating down a seemingly voidless ocean of dark, tranquil waters for all eternity, all alone?

Alone?

Was this the payment for those five minutes alive? I had to spend my existence in eternal solitude?

I panicked.

I trashed, I flailed and wailed wildly and uncontrollably, I was like a kid with a fork stuck into the wall socket. I opened my mouth and shrieked only for quiet bubbles to escape my lips.

This was not fair! None of it was fair! Why did I have to pay like this for only five minutes of what everyone else got for free?! No, no, no, no, no; five minutes wasn't enough; it was not anything near enough.

I wanted more; I needed more.

I wanted to live, to walk free, to run, to jump. To feel loved and give it back, to embrace someone or laugh with them. I fought gravity; I tried to grab something even when I knew there was nothing, but the waters didn't care for what I thought.

A blinding golden light came from the deep below, and I squinted my eyes to protect them, I tried to look, but it was too bright. Was that the light at the end of the road?

I trashed harder; I didn't want to go in there, not now, not ever.

I didn't care if that light sent me to heaven or hell, I didn't want to go, I just wanted to live a little more.

Who was I kidding, a little wasn't enough, those five minutes of life had not quenched my thirst but increase it, I had become an addict to a new drug, and now the universe was taking it away just as I was about to sniff the bloody thing.

My arms moved around, my legs kicked, and I kept trying to scream so much that a whole cloud of bubbles had materialized above me, creating a trail behind my wake.

I only wanted a year of life, a week? Maybe a day, please anything was fine, I just wanted more, please.

The light was coming closer; I couldn't keep my eyes open without it stinging them savagely.

Why was it so bad for me to want a little more? I wished for more, please.

Please.

Please, someone, save me. Please just one minute more, just let me feel the warmth of someone else for one minute. Five seconds? Anything? Please. Anyone, anything, please save me, I beg you all.

Save me.

I don't care who does it, please somebody, something save me!

Something coiled around my left wrist; it slithered around my arm and took hold of me hard enough to make my bones pop. Another soundless scream ran out of me as the pressure increased.

Suddenly I was pulled upwards, the dark waters and gravity fought to keep me in their greedy claws, but the pressure in my arm increased, and I was dragged faster and faster.

The light stayed behind, and the darkness came back in force.

The thing pulling me, slithered further down my arm until it looped my whole shoulder, and I couldn't do anything about it because the pressure of the waters made me unable to raise my other arm to try and fight its grasp.

A sound like nails on a chalkboard came from below, the thing making it was a ball of pure light that soared beside me, going above and then flying directly at me like a homing missile, but before it got near, a dark tendril of black muscles came from above and speared it.

The light ball exploded with the sound of broken glass and enough brightness to illuminate the thing pulling me up, and I let out a muted scream because it was another of those black tendrils.

The nail on chalkboard sound came again, with enough force to make me wish I was deaf, the noise was jarring and painful; I looked down to see what caused it and flinched.

A swarm of light orbs was coming, thousands upon thousands. So many of them it was like that whole bright bottom that I had seen before had decided to rise for the occasion.

And they were all coming toward us.

They came, and as the blinding light approached, the dark fought back. A myriad of worm-like tendrils flew from above and impaled a thousand of the bright spheres, some of the fleshy tendrils missed the mark and instead got burned to ashes by the balls.

I was front row and center to a war that I had no idea who to root for or what it was about; I couldn't even start to think that all of this could be only for me.

But yes, my thoughts were confirmed the moment two of those lights balls got close, they dodged a dozen more tendrils and went directly after me. The first one got almost to my feet before one of the tendrils caught up with it and punctured it right in the middle.

The other didn't get so close, three tendrils tried to stop it from all sides, but the sphere dodged around them like a spaceship flying around meteorites in a sci-fi movie. But then a fourth bigger tendril with noticeable pulsing veins made of a bright sky blue color came and separated into a dozen smaller ones that trapped the sphere before swallowing it whole. After a second, the whole tendril burst in bright light after the ball died inside it.

More bright spheres came and died; I was hypnotized by a show that was probably a horrific and bloody battle but was entirely too alien for me; the complete lack of blood or guts swimming around, and my morbid curiosity kept me from truly realizing it.

I was stunned, and the tendril pulling me took advantage of my lack of fight to move me around and side to side like a ragdoll to dodge the incoming spheres that we're able to reach us.

One more got close, it was catching up to my feet, and then even when it reached, it ignored them and came closer until it was swimming parallel to my chest. It wouldn't touch me, and I stared at it like a moth to the flame.

I felt like it was looking back at me; it didn't have eyes or any particular features, it was quite literally a ball made of a bright light that was luckily not strong enough to scald my eyes.

More spheres came but were quickly killed off, I didn't know why the tendrils ignored the one in front of me, but although this one was moving in sync with me and my taxi tendril, none of the worm-like things had come for it.

It was waiting for something, I don't know how I could tell, but at that moment, both the dark and the light around me were waiting for something, for me to do something. I had no idea what either of them wanted.

I don't know what the most logical or sensible thing to do would have been; I just knew I didn't want to go back down.

I shoved my feet at it and tried to kick it away, I failed miserably, not only was I against the strong currents of the waters, but I was also tired from my mad trashing from earlier, but my action sent a signal that was seemingly understood by both sides.

The sphere charged at me and was quickly introduced to the tip of a tendril from above.

I prepared myself for more to come, but suddenly I was being yanked out of the waters.

In the panic and confusion, the first thing to come to my head was the odd thought that the water was more akin to a sort of a thick dark gray liquid like honey. Then came back vertigo, and I screamed.

At least I could hear my girly shriek this time around, so that's a good thing.

I flew out of the water like a fish in a hook, the tendril still very much twisted all over my arm, I closed my eyes and prepared myself to belly splash against something hard and painful but instead I was met by a pair of strong arms that caught me bridal style.

"Congratulations," said a voice like dust and gravel. "Your prayers were heard."

I opened one eye a little.

He was a man wearing a ragged black cape, middle-aged if I had to guess, he had long black hair that flowed down his back and around his long face with bangs of his hair slithering around his face like black blood from a wound. Pale skin laid over his pronounced cheekbones and his broad chin, with only a massive mustache for facial hair, but his most striking feature was his reddish-brown eyes that made me feel like a kid looking up to their abusive father just as the man prepared to beat them.

He smiled, and I felt cold sweat travel down my spine.

"Are you, are you the devil?" I felt like slapping myself after asking that.

He chuckled like sand over paper but didn't answer my question.

"Tell me, did you knew that poison and venom are not the same?" he turned around and began walking.

"What?" that nonsecular fact took me by surprise, and he knew it, the bastard chuckled again.

I was going to give him a comment about how he could put something poisonous on his behinds, but that was when I took notice of our surroundings, and my mouth fell flatly on my chest.

A jungle straight out of the worse acid trip had come to life.

Giant trees of spiky black bark and sky blue fleshy leaves mockingly waved in the air as if they were palm trees, flesh bags with eyes hanged from them like fruits ready for harvest. The ground was hidden behind a bluish, ghostly miasma that moved like smoke around the man's legs as he walked.

Giant tendrils of dark flesh and bright blue veins the size of skyscrapers danced in the horizon in conjunction with gigantic blueish serpentine creatures with dragon-like heads and fiery bright eyes.

But the worse was the Eye.

No sun or moon cast their placid light upon this world, but the Eye that floated in the sky, four of the dragon-snakes surrounded it like chains and held it in place as it stared right at us.

"hum," the man grunted, I ignored him; I was too scared to feel embarrassed about peeing over his arm.

He didn't move his arm or dropped me on the floor; he kept walking into the jungle unbothered by my reaction.

"It is terrifying, is it not?" he said casually, "I still taste the feeling in my bones, doesn't matter how many times I have come to visit here."

I wanted to ask what sane person would come to visit this place, but I kept my mouth shut.

He continued as the smoke below danced around his knees. "You cried, girl, you screamed, shouted, and begged… and for what? The gods and rulers of your universe care not for the wishes of a mere soul, but I am not one of them."

"Wh- what do you mean?"

He stopped and stared directly at me, his smile disappeared, and thankfully that made him look way less creepy.

"I understand what it feels to be forgotten."

That clicked right on me, I flinched in his arms and couldn't stop myself from asking, "You do?"

He nodded, and his eyes lost focus as the memories flowed in his mind. "They first come every day, then every couple of days until the visits become monthly, one day they don't come back anymore without a goodbye. You hate them for a while, but that hatred quickly turns back on you. You realize they can't stand looking at you shriveling up anymore, and you forgive them… instead, you hate yourself for being weak, being nothing."

I shaky breath escaped me, the sting of tears harassed my eyes.

"Your gods won't save you; they already forsook you, nobody will give you another chance in your universe… but I can give you one in mine."

"Can, can you do that?"

He smiled again, and somehow, this time was a genuine smile, from one breath to another, he transformed from the creepy old devil in this wretched hell into a grandpa or a nice distant uncle.

He nodded for an answer and began to walk again.

"I can give you another chance… not in your world, but mine. I can't promise you more."

"You are the devil, aren't you?"

He chuckled again, and I wasn't surprised that even his laugh had somehow changed to sound even more gentle. I was falling down his weave of lies, and I couldn't muster the dread inside me to feel any panic. I was trapped, and I was calm about it.

"What do I have to give you in return? My soul?" I asked him.

"Your soul is of no interest to me, child. You will become an agent of my prophecy with your mere existence. Although my world is much like yours, it is different as well, and it is bound to a future, not unlike the one you see around us. The people of my world do not understand this and fight me…"

I was entranced in his story, my head slowly laying against his warm chest; I knew for sure that every word that came out of his lips could have been a lie. If he were indeed the devil like I believed, then he would lie with every cell of his being, but I found myself not caring.

"I have rewritten history time and time again," he continued, "yet trying to do so with the same pieces have led me to the same results…it is time for a new one to prove its worth."

We stopped right in front of an altar, it was made of white stone and filled with cracks, and fleshy blue tendrils that reminded me of jungle vines, right in the center of the platform was what looked like a stone bathtub filled with a shining blue liquid that forced me to squint.

He slowly got me on my feet, I tried to stand on my own, but I couldn't hold my weight for even one breath, I thought I would fall, but he held me in place with one of his massive hands against my waist. I had not noticed it before, but he was so tall that he towered over me like a god.

"That body of yours is brittle and weak. Useless." He commented, and I looked to my feet in shame.

Suddenly I heard a massive tendril come from above, and before I looked up, a body fell right in front of us smashing headfirst into the altar and making me flinch and cry in fear.

If the woman wasn't dead before, then the fall would have done the job.

I couldn't see her face, but the rest of her sprawled dead body was there in front of my eyes for them to wander, she was small like me and slim but not in a sickly way like me. Her long raven hair hid most of her head, and she was wearing a white and light blue uniform that reminded me of something straight out of Nazi Germany.

"She is of no use to me anymore," the devil said, "you won't share her story, her memories will be long gone, but her body and my blood will serve as the raw material for a new one that I will bestow upon you."

He kicked the body, and it fell into the altar's waters, I cringed when I heard her scream, and I realized that she was somehow still alive, but that lasted a heartbeat as she was eaten by the glimmering liquid.

The devil kneeled next to the tub while he held me with no effort; he was gentle with me and sat me on his knee like a child. I got distracted with looking at one particularly massive glowing bubble in the liquid grow larger and larger until it popped, it was like one of those disgusting concoctions that bad chefs would make in anime series and force their friends to try.

I gulped.

"What will you do now, my dear?" he asked as he patted me on the back.

"Do I have to… jump into that?" another bubble burst, and I flinched, I would have fallen from his knee if he had not held me with his hands.

"It won't hurt, but you don't have to do it. I won't force you."

"And what happens if I don't want to?"

"You will go back to the sea of souls and drop to the soul society of your world."

I looked at him. "Is that heaven?"

He furrowed his brows at that. "Is that how you call it?" he shook his head and continued, "The name is meaningless. You will go to the place where all spirits go after death and become just another nameless soul wandering for eternity."

"And if I dive in your three Michelin star soup, what happens?"

His head went backward, and a bellowing laugh ran out of him before he looked back at me with a fond smile, "You certainly have an interesting way of talking."

"You didn't answer the question," I said while I crossed my arms.

"You know the answer already. Don't you, my dear?"

I sighed loudly and wiped the sweat out of my bald head, the blue bubbles in the tub were taunting me, his most likely very, very fake smile was way too convincing, and the offer was irresistible.

"At least…" I said, "at least tell me your name." I asked of him.

"You won't remember it when you wake up," he stated, and I shrugged.

"I don't care."

"I am the Almighty, the father of your new blood and god of your new people… I am Yhwach."

I stood on my own feet; he had to hold me by the waist again to stop me from falling down and into the tub unceremoniously, which was kind of ironic since then I took one step closer, and then another and then my knees were in contact with the rock.

I turned to look at him, and he still had that grandfatherly smile plastered all over his face. I returned my eyes to the tub, and without a moment more of hesitation, I kneeled on it and plunged my foot inside.

The bottom I was expecting to reach was not there; I went to yelp in surprise, but the tub sucked me in like a vacuum cleaner.

The last I saw was the eye in the sky staring back at me.

Well, that's the end of Episode 1, onto the next one! I decided to post this story with two chapters in one go since the first one is more of a prologue than anything.

Please leave a review if you enjoyed it or found any glaring errors, English is not my first language but is the one I enjoy writing the most, so there are bound to be some mistakes here and there.