It was an odd experience to say the least, being alive one moment and dead the next. Aliya opened her eyes, which she had felt melt only moments prior, but now she could hardly feel anything at all. She tried to remember what had occurred, some sort of experiment gone wrong? It was all a blur to her. Looking below her feet, she saw nothing but a blank expanse of darkness, the only thing separating her from the murky darkness below being some sort of transparent, greyish escalator. When she turned, her vision was met with the horrifying sight of a blinding light, encapsulating the entirety of her vision. When the fog in her eyes cleared, she finally registered what was going on. She was dead. What used to be skin on her hands was replaced with a sort of wispy, yet fluffy blueish material. Other souls stood at the front of the escalator, with their backs to her. As they approached the giant light, their forms disappeared and disintegrated. Aliya watched with a squint, before the realization that she was mere steps away from the mysterious orb filled her with dread.

Her mind blurry, she instead turned around and ran as fast as her little legs could take her. There was no way she was going to let herself submit to oblivion that easily, and even though she was very much dead, she found the uncertainty of what lies beyond the white void to be all the more terrifying.

So she submitted herself to the murky darkness instead.

She fell for what felt like ages, she started to think that perhaps she would just fall forever. At the very least, the fall was entertaining. Sometimes she would encounter giant objects in the darkness, that would change the color of her surroundings, and sometimes the whole area became thicker, and she would have to tread through it like water. Everything went this way for quite a while, until she saw a strange box open up beneath her, leading to a blue, grassy field.

She landed face-first into the grass, quickly realizing how, despite the fall, she felt no pain at all. In fact, she couldn’t even feel the grass around her, which was a shame because it looked really soft. The atmosphere of this place was incredibly calming, it filled Aliya with an almost drunken state of euphoria. Her eyes fluttered gently, being overcome by a desire to sleep. However, before having a chance to fully give in to these desires, she was quickly awoken by a loud rustling in the grass.

As she came to her senses she started to panic, where was she now? What kind of creatures could be living here? Other souls? Or something worse..?

She ducked into the grass frantically, trying to hide from whatever it was that was out there. She started to crawl on all fours, creeping through the underbrush in an attempt to get to a motionless area. However, soon she saw something rapidly stretching, reaching straight for her, it looked like an arm, but it was translucent, with a slight blue hue, and seemed to have a white outline around it. At that point she got up and ran, but it was too late, something or rather...someone, had grabbed her by the legs, and was rapidly hoisting her upwards.

When Aliya turned around, her eyes met the gaze of an absolutely gigantic being. Just looking at them seemed to hurt her brain a bit, almost as if they were something she wasn’t supposed to see. The creature in question was best described as looking similar to a picasso painting, a crude reimagination of a human in a way. They had no eyes, and their entire body was covered in a white outline, anything within the outline being a translucent blue, but they also cast a slight blue glow around them as well. The being was rather stocky, she had a long nose and wide hips with a large overbite, there was also a stray line that lay between her eyes that stuck up, and a line that curled on the side of her head that, in a way, resembled a hair bun. Despite the fact the Aliya was being held tightly in the creature’s grip, and the fact the creature seemed to be eyeing her over angrily, she didn’t feel intimidated at all.

In fact, she found the creature kind of attractive.