Afterlife

He wasn't stopping, not even to breathe. It was amazing and awful, incredible and horrible. He had entered the church, were members of the Cataclysm Circle had come to take shelter after the Alliance had pushed them from one side to the other of the Arno river.

We were exhausted but he, the Creature some called it, seemed to be unstoppable, never being tired, not thinking his actions more than once. He was driven by anger, despair and grief. Just pain, that was it for him and it showed.

No one really knew how, but he could use all the power of his mind. With only thinking of it, he elevated people from the ground ant threw them across the room, not caring if they broke their necks or their legs. He was merciless and no one tried to stop him, at least not us.

He had been known as Adrian. He was a legend of the war as he and a rather small group of people had died activating a bomb inside the castle were the supreme chief of the Cataclysm Circle lived. They had been able to destroy the core of the organization but that didn't seem to hurt them as much as everyone had thought. Not all members of the Alliance had died back then, some of them knew who he was and that's why some still referred to him as Adrian.

Now, that dead man was throwing people from one side to the other, choking them with his mind and stopping their hearts. In the storming of the Circle's castle, many people he loved had died. His most beloved person in the world among those. He had never wanted for all of them to be there. He had actually told the Council that he had a way to get inside without being detected, nor the bomb, and that he would use that in his advantage to destroy them

But the Council saw it as a way to become a hero and they didn't wanted any of that so they formed a team of six people to penetrate the rebel base and a latter group of thirty to knock out any remaining machines or communications of the Circle's core with the rest of the organization.

Thirty people died that day, high in the Alps, so far away from anything. Including him, or so it seemed. His body was sent to Vaduz, as the Alliance closest base was there. So many bodies, from so many parts of the continent. And there was word of so many more elsewhere.

But Adrian was not a normal human being. A week after his death, he woke up in a huge storage building. No bodies had been buried yet as there was nowhere to do it. Luckily for Adrian, anyhow. He stood up there, in the middle of the place and cried in silence. He knew he was never supposed to come back but he did anyway. Before guards realized he was inside, he saw the familiar faces he had loved so much and his tears were simply not enough for the pain he felt.

And now, he had already finished his raid on the church. Fellow soldiers entered the place and scouted for survivors or men Adrian had maybe missed. But no, that wasn't the case. Everyone there was dead and he knew it.

Without saying a word, he had vanished. No one worried though, because he always came back.

Weeks later, word was that he had meet with the Council. If gossip was to be believed, they were not very happy to hear he had massacred all the Circle's soldiers inside the church. They told him that the Alliance didn't wanted the world to think they would do just about anything to stop their enemies. They told Adrian that they couldn't be linked with a person which such a particular background, so he needed to calm down in order to join them in future missions.

Well, the rest was not gossip as many people heard Adrian himself speak. He exited the room were the meeting was being held and got to the main hall, were many people were working with wounded or preparing strategies. He told everyone he would be leaving the Alliance to work by his own account. He encouraged everyone to defeat the Cataclysm Circle, fast and with little or no casualties.
Adrian told them he had to much hate inside and that no person working to accomplish a goal should be driven by hatred.

What happened after, again, was subject of interpretation and depended on the information people received from few that claimed to have seen Adrian. Some fisherman in Norway, claimed he had travelled by foot to Bergen. There, a fish saleswoman claimed he had worked for her for some time until he decided to leave for the Americas, or so she claimed he told her.

But no one in that side of the world ever said anything about a man with extraordinary powers. Many, even after the war had ended, insisted on finding him. They were sure he couldn't die and possibly not age, either. So he had to be alive somewhere. Those people looking for him desperately, were the ones disappointed with the new government, which had failed to guarantee basic rights and many other things they had fought for. They believed Adrian could bring them that freedom they wanted, so they looked for him.

Years passed until a farmer in eastern Iceland claimed to have been helped by a man that seemed ravaged by war. He claimed the man didn't spoke at all but he volunteered with signs to work for him, helping with the sheep and the pigs. The farmer told papers that he was the best worker he had ever had. When asked what happened with that man, the farmer said he didn't know. He just disappeared on day, after finishing his chores.

Almost a decade after that event, even less people remembered Adrian and his exceptional mind. Only a small group of people insisted on finding him. They would travel around with their own money to look for clues of Adrian's whereabouts.

They finally found an old fisherman that claimed to have been saved by a merman, off the coast of Greenland. The small group of investigators flew to Kangerlussuaq and spoke with the fisherman but they soon believed to have been duped. The story did not make sense and the man was so old he might have been just inventing nonsense.

The fisherman's son told them he always told people that story, and he frankly had no idea why. He even said the merman took care of him for several days but that was ridiculous.

The fisherman's cottage was a little bit far from the main town so the small group stayed there to rest before their journey back home. The fisherman's son prepared a delicious fish stew and they all talked and joked all night long, drinking liquor, having fun without thinking in nothing else.

They left the following morning. After they did so, the fisherman's son went back to his usual duties: caring of the man that had actually saved him before becoming senile. He had saved him from drowning and the man responded by giving him a home and support. Adrian would never forget that.

Dream Sequence

I run. Not really knowing where I'm going or why do I move so fast, faster than I would normally run.

Hundreds of houses built on cliffs, white as snows with small tile roofs above nice little balconies. And I run on them, on the tile roofs. They must have been built by someone very skilled as now tile moves. The problem is I slip sometimes and I realize what's there, beyond. Nothing. Big black nothing.

I stop for a moment and look in front of me. There, at the end of the tiled houses, there are platforms that move. They look like big wooden circles and they move as wheels inside a clock. And then, something even stranger. The clouds above the largest circle, which is covered in what appears to be moss, turn black and start spiraling down, forming some kind of tornado. It's colored black and green and seems beautiful and grim at the same time. I feel hopeless as I see it.

But then the sky appears to suck the tornado back in and everything goes back to normal, normal for this world I mean.

I look back. No one. But I feel followed, I feel that if I don't move the tiles may begin to move and collapse under my feet. And I know really well I don't want this to finish here.

I resume my running, from one roofs to the other, jumping over gaps between houses. When I do it, I watch down: a long fall and then, pitch black.

When I finally get to the first moving circle, I fall to my knees. It's not that my legs hurt, they don't. But it's rather the feeling of having no air to breathe. I feel like a bug on a jar. I instinctively gaze up, to the sky, but there's nothing. The clouds are cotton white and the sky blue, peaceful for now.

I get up and jump to the next platform. My foot has not touched down well and I fall, hitting the ground heavily. I feel hopeless again. With one look I confirm it: the tornado has formed again and, somehow, it looks more menacing now.

Once it goes back to the sky, I continue, this time analyzing every jump carefully as falling may be fatal. The fun thing is I know I'm dreaming. I know I cannot die. But the feeling is so strong, so powerful, that my breathing accelerates.

I get to the last platform, before the one covered in moss. I realize something: in the center of the circle there's a small sand pyramid. I know it's sand because the surface seems to move. Deep breath and jump onto the fluffy surface.

From there I can finally see my next destination: there are more moving platforms that descend slightly to a floating green valley. I have to pass by the pyramid the start my trek towards the valley but then everything turns black: the tornado descend on me. Hopeless, in pain, wanting to scream but can't. Those winds around me make me feel like killing myself but I cannot even move so I know the tornado wants only to torture me.

I hear voices and feel, in a few seconds, every major feeling I've had. My head is about to explode as I'm rendered useless and fall to the ground. From there, I see the pyramid being dissolved and sucked by the tornado. It seems to last for years.

I want to force myself to wake up but I can't. Is it really a dream? What is real? Stop it! I can't breath. I can feel death near...

And then it ends. The grains of sand that make up the pyramid slow fall into place again and the small structure rests there again, on the green carpet.

Taking a deep breath, I stand up and jump on to the next platform. Then I run, from one point to the other, like in a video game, as I did on the tiled roofs. I have to run away from that vacuum space. I do not want to feel like that ever again.

I finally get to a place of rectangular wooden platforms, all covered in grass. Strangely, this is the first place I see people. Although, when I come closer, I realize they are machines. They are dressed in old clothes, with big dresses for the ladies and top-hats for the gentlemen.

I wander around, fascinated by them. They walk around the platforms, as if chatting as they take a stroll on a european summer day. On the bigger platforms, there are black ponds. Realizing how thirsty I am, I kneel in front of one: it's not water but dark beer. It doesn't matter. I drink until I'm satisfied and then sit there, watching the holograms and robots walk about, ignoring my presence.

Then, I feel I have to go on. I look back: the tornado is forming. I get up and walk the other way, past a few more couples and then, at the bottom of the small green valley, there's a cave.

And something strange happens: I smile. Somehow, I know now everything is fine and that this is, in fact a dream. I look a this bizarre world one last time, before entering the cave.

I wake up confused, feeling I have been running a marathon. My legs actually hurt. For a second, I recall everything that happened on the dream, as I stand up to have breakfast.

- I have to written down. - I think, as I pour a lot of orange juice into a glass. After all, I've been running a lot.